THE BLIND SISTERS 
OF SAINT PAUL 


MAURICE DE LA SIZERANNE 











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MES, 


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Nihil obstat 
J. WILHELM, S.T.D. 
Censor deputatus 


Imprimi potest 


% GULIELMUS 


Episcopus Arindelensis 
Vicarius Generalis 


Westmonasterii, die 16 Oct. 1906 


Digitized by- the Internet Archive 
in 2007 with funding from 
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THE 
BLIND SISTERS 


OF SAINT PAUL 


By 
MAURICE DE LA SIZERANNE 


Authorized Translation 


By L. M. LEGGATT 


NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO 
BENZIGER BROTHERS 


Printers to the Holy Apostolic See 
1907 


TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE 


HOSE who are, even through the medium 

of a translation, about to follow Monsieur 

de la Sizeranne’s scholarly and sympathetic 
pages would need no preface in the usual sense of 
the word, were it not for the special circumstances 
of the Author. Maurice de la Sizeranne, born 
in 1857, elder brother of Robert de la Sizeranne, 
known by his study of Ruskin (‘‘La Religion de la 
Beauté”’), became blind in 1866. In 1889 he founded 
the Valentin Hatiy Association for the welfare of 
the blind, of which he is Chief Secretary. He directs 
two papers, the ‘‘ Valentin Hatiy” and the ‘‘ Louis 
Braille,” and his principal work, ‘‘Les Aveugles 
par un Aveugle,” was crowned by the French 
Academy. His earlier book, ‘‘Impressions et Sou- 
venirs d’un Aveugle,” is preceded by a preface 
from the pen of no less a personage than Francois 
Coppée, but I believe it is my privilege to be the 
first to introduce ‘‘The Blind Nuns of St Paul” to 
English readers, or indeed to many English Catho- 
lics. The latter will rejoice to hear that, as the 
community does not belong to a teaching Order, 
but ranks as a ‘‘Congrégation Hospitaliére,” it 
has received authorization. Should, however, any 
further development of ecclesiastical affairs in 
France dissolve the Community, the next scene of 
- their labours would certainly be our own dear 
England. The present Superior, who according to 
the Constitutions is never chosen from among the 
blind, is an Irish lady. It only remains for me to beg 


386360 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


the indulgence of those who, being debarred from 
reading Monsieur de la Sizeranne’s beautiful pages 
in the original, must fain be content with a more 
or less inadequate echo. Perhaps this will merge 
criticism in gratitude. 


Sutton, April, 1907. L. M. LEGGATT 


vj 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


Yr “HE hitherto practically unknown commu- 
nity of the Blind Nuns of St Paul deserves 
wider fame. It is sufficiently attractive to 

study the religious congregations of our time from 

a psychological and social point of view, since we 

can thus analyse and classify many needs of the 

present day, the spirit of self-sacrifice and those 
forms of physical or moral indigence differing so 
widely from those which a gift can relieve. But is 
not a still keener interest aroused when it is a ques- 
tion of nuns whose blindness places them under 
such special conditions? In this community all the 
sisters are not blind or threatened with blindness; 
there are many nuns with perfect eyesight; still the 
name of ‘‘Blind Sisters of St Paul” was given to 
the Congregation to emphasize the fact that it was 
founded for the blind and is their true home. Be- 
fore penetrating into the convent, or describing the 
origin, the charitable aims or the future of the 

Congregation, it seems indispensable—though we 

must not overlook the problem of the blind girl’s 

vocation, or the type of abnegation which leads a 

woman with eyesight to live in the midst of the 

blind—to speak, even at great length, of blindness 
in woman. It is necessary to analyse the impres- 
sions she receives from things and from'people, and 
to discuss what her place in a home can be. Can she 
be useful or activeP Can she love and be loved? 

Finally, what is to be her physical or mental share 

of life? These questions, though preliminary, never- 


vij 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


theless demand wide development, given the fact 
of how little we realize the real physical and moral 
condition of the blind. In the first part of this book, 
therefore, I have endeavoured to portray the sen- 
sations of blind women, and how they feel, live and 
act; I have quoted as much as possible from their 
own words, to give a sincere test of their impres- 
sions. I have also quoted largely from writers who 
appear unconsciously to have recorded purely tac- 
tile and oral impressions; so as to show that the 
‘‘contact of the blind with nature” is not chimerical, 
since these perceptions and sensations which I claim 
for them have been felt and expressed by certain 
well-known and appreciated writers. It is, there- 
fore, quite intentionally that I have multiplied quo- 
tations in this book, in spite of the disadvantages 
of such a method. I would add that it is always a 
pleasure to come across pages of charming writing, 
and if these extracts induce the reader to finish the 
book, he cannot blame me. Suchisthis modest work, 
and in spite of its want of cohesion—not to mention 
other defects—it seemed to me that its subject 
might interest philanthropists and students of psy- 
chology. 


Viij 


CONTENTS 


Translator’s Preface 
Author’s Preface 


PART I 
The Psychology of Blind Women 


BOOK I 


Surroundings: Sensations and Impressions 
I Contact with Nature 


II ‘‘Seeing” our Fellow-Creatures 
III The ‘‘ Voices” of the House 


BOOK II 
Physical Activity 
I How to find one’s Way without Eyesight 
II Everyday Life 


BOOK III 
The Blind Woman Herself 


“I Appearances, Tastes, Disposition 
II The Life of the Affections 


Conclusion to Part I 


PART II 


Vij 


ENXw 


73 
83 


The Community of the Blind Sisters of St Paul 


BOOK I 
Their Origin 
I The Founders 


II Preliminaries, Aim and Spirit of the Foundation 


III The Constitutions; the Rule 
1x 


106 
120 
129 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


BOOK II 
The Convent 
I Material Occupations 
Il The Community Room, the Chapel 
III The Classes 
IV The Musical Section 
V The Knitting Department 
VI The Brush Department 
VII The Printing of the ‘‘ White Books” 


BOOK III 
The Nuns 


I Religious Vocation 
II Vocations among the Blind 
III The Religious Life 
IV Living with the Blind 


CONCLUSION 
The Future of the Congregation 


PART THE FIRST 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BLIND WOMEN 


CO cal 














ie 


‘in daily life. Facts are so quickly and so easily 


THE BLIND 
SISTERS OF SAINT PAUL 


PART THE FIRST 

BOOK I. Suggestions, Sensations and Impressions 
AS anyone ever wondered what passes in 

H the heart and mind of a blind girl of twenty 
who enters a convent? It is unlikely, 

since it would seem that a young girl deprived of 
sight knows nothing of what makes the tangible 
charm of life, or even its moral worth, and she offers 
to others none of the charms of her age. She has 
nothing to lose, since she has nothing to give; her 
entry into religion is therefore an insignificant step. 
Instead of the convent gates closing on a rich 
flower of promise and enchantment, they shut in a 
frigid and mournful creature who cannot offer life 
or perfume to almighty God. Beauty she rarely 
possesses. The hope of marriage she must lay 
down, for who could love a blind woman? Li- 
berty P—the word is vain irony in her case—what 
can it matter whether she vegetate in the cloister 
or elsewhere? To one in darkness are not all 
places alike? This kind of reasoning is due to the 
preponderance of visual impressions over all others 


acquired through the eyes that they absorb all our 


attention; we accustom ourselves to trust only to 


what we see, neglecting those impressions which 

are less attractive to the mind and also less con- 

venient in ordinary life, but which, nevertheless, 
1 1 


THE. BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


although they. are quite useful in practical ways, 
are penetrating and suggestive. We must not for- 
get that in many cases the eye only beholds the 
outward symbol of things in a rapid and superfi- 
cial survey. On the Resurrection morning, in the 
dew-drenched, spring-scented garden of Arimathea, 
Mary Magdalen was mournfully carrying a vase of 
perfumes to what she believed to be the grave of the 
Eternal Beloved. She saw a figure, looked again, 
but did not recognize Him. Her Lord had to 
speak and call her once more in that beloved 
voice, ‘‘ Mary!” before she could fall at the feet of 
Jesus, and kiss them, touch them. Oh no! sight is 
not everything. It behoves us, then, to define and 
analyse the impressions which a blind girl can re- 
ceive in her contact with things and individuals, 
that is to say, the impressions which she can re- 
ceive from nature in the first instance, and second- 
ly from her fellow creatures. 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


@, I. Contact with Nature 


HE poetical, magnetic soul of a girl of 

twenty is not numbed because she is de- 

privedof eyesight. Sight is not indispensable 
for us to feel ourselves in contact and communion 
with creation. The phenomena of nature take in the 
whole being; the great magnetism and enchantment 
of life penetrate to the soul through all its avenues; 
the mysterious emanations of a spring morning, the 
teeming vigour of a radiant summer’s evening, 
the melancholy of some afternoon in autumn, the 
mournful peace of calm days in winter do not only 
appeal to the eye.* 

The air, the vagrant breeze which we can smell 
and feel over our faces, has an acute savour and 
an intensity which vary according to the hour and 
the season; this difference is naturally more notice- 
able in fields and woods than in a walled-in street, 
and on a day typical of the time of year than in 
uncertain weather. The air is almost always satu- 
rated with scents; those of May are not those of 
October. The damp earth of spring sowings does 
not give out the same smell when turned, as in 
autumn when mixed with dead leaves; June and 


* “The night before, storm clouds, following each other from dawn till 
evening over the sea, had passed over the country, and like empty grain 
sacks had poured their contents over the dry earth. Quantities of leaves had 
fallen, especially from the higher branches; others still hung heavily to the 
twigs. The scent of wet woods rose towards the tranquil, milky sky. No 
wind stirred; no bird sang; the landscape seemed listening to the last drops, 
formed in the night, which fell at the foot of the trees with a metallic sound. 
On Challans hills, all over the distant Fromentiére the creaking of a far-off 
plough and the cries of cattle drovers announced the beginning of autumn 
labour.—René Bazin, ‘‘La Terre qui meurt.” 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


September hay perfume the air quite differently 
from July harvests; the evening threshings of Au- 
gust give out a warm, sweet smell of grain, and sug- 
gest a sense of abundance, peace and prosperity. 
Even in a town there are marked differences: in 
summer doors and windows are open, and the 
temperature being lower indoors than out, air flows 
from the house to the street, and, so to speak, 
carries with it the odours of humanity. The moving 
heat develops the aroma of clothes worn by people 
we meet, the streets in winter are quite different in 
an olfactory sense to what they are in summer. It is 
a mistake to think that the ‘‘sun is always the sun”; 
bright and stimulating spring sunshine does not have 
the same effect on the skin as the heavy perpendi- 
cular rays of July; the still warm sun of October 
does not produce the same tangible sensation as the 
oblique and watery beams of December. 

In winter the atmosphere is opaque, metallic and 
heavy. In spring the general rise of sap affects all 
nature, the air reaches us laden with the heady 
scents of grass, young leaves, newly-turned earth; 
it is fresh, light, fluid; impregnated with the smell 
of new buds. ‘‘Spring is everywhere,” writes a 
blind woman in April; ‘‘the air is full of vague, in- 
definite scents, sap is oozing everywhere, peach 
trees are in bloom, little spring flowers gem the 
woods; despite the heavy layer of dry leaves that 
are crushed with a sound of rustling silk. And the 
birds! there are quantities here; from my window 
I can hear the crisp little trills of the chaffinch.” 

Summer is quite different—except on certain 
exceptional mornings when there seems a kind of 
returning memory of spring but without much of 
its charm, the BENE NH is usually burning or 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


heavy and dust-laden, and if, by accident, or in a 
mountainous district, the breeze is keener and 
fresher, it is generally scentless. It may carry some 
odour, but it will be that of full-blown flowers which 
spend their last treasures in their maturity. The 
promise and charm of sap are absent. ‘*‘ You can’t 
think how lovely it feels,” writes the same blind 
woman in June, ‘‘the drowsiness of summer makes 
one dream: hum of insects, penetrating scent of 
lime trees and sun-warmed roses, all is so different 
to spring, you can feel that Nature begins to be 
exhausted by her long blossoming time.” 

Surroundings, no less than seasons, alter the at- 
mosphere. The sea breeze, damp, keen and salt, 
differs completely from the dry cutting blast from 
a glacier, or the more or less oozy and fishy ema- 
nations which we inhale near large pieces of fresh 
water. The wind of the meadows is not that of the 
cornfield. The south and north winds have each 
their definite characteristics: we cannot, by smell 
or touch, confuse the hot whirlwind of the equinox 
with the sleety snowstorms of midwinter. Let us | 
recall the lines of Michelet and Lamartine; real 
nature lovers, they did not limit themselves to 
only describing what they saw: 

‘*The two semicircular bays of Royan and St 
Georges, with their fine sands, provide the most 
delightful walking for tender feet. One can go on 
endlessly without fatigue in the scent of the pine 
trees, which brighten the cliffs with their fresh 
verdure. The beautiful promontories which sepa- 
rate the two beaches, and the inland moors send 
out their wholesome emanations from afar. The 
prevailing fragrance on the cliffs is almost medici- 


nal, the honey of the immortelles seems to blend 
5 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


and concentrate with the sun and heat from the 
sand. On the moors grow keen-smelling plants, 
which seem to revive the spirits and clear the 
brain. Wild thyme, clover, the voluptuous marjo- 
ram, sage prized of our forefathers for its great 
virtues, mint hot as pepper, and above all the tiny 
wild pink, give out all the spices of the East. Though 
it was October, the moor had all its mild scents, and 
they seemed to me at whiles more penetrating than 
ever. From the shore, as yet calm, a soft, warm air 
blew on my face, and no less gently did the trea- 
cherous sea caress my feet. I was not deceived, and 
I guessed what both wind and wave had in store 
for me. ... We hear and guess the presence of the 
mighty sea before we catch a glimpse of it. First 
comes the distant, muffled, monotonous sound; gra- 
dually it dominates all others. Soon we discern the 
solemn rhythm, the deep, strong note, ever louder 
and more menacing—the oscillation of a clock is not 
more even, as it registers the hours. But here the 
pendulum does not swing with the monotony of 
mechanism. We feel the vibrating echo of life. And 
when the tide is high, and the immense flashing 
waves rise over each other, we can hear, through 
the stormy rushing of the waters, the sound of shells 
and thousands of living organisms which the sea 
brings with her. As the tide turns, the sand goes 
seething back with all the multitudes that had faith- 
fully followed the sea to return againintoher bosom. 

‘‘Many other voices has she! If she be ever so 
little roused, her wails and sighs contrast with the 
mournful silence of the shore. The earth seems to 
pause and listen to the threat of the sea, which 
yesterday was so smiling and so smooth. What will 
the sea say? I will not prophesy. I will not speak 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


here of the awful concert she perhaps will give, of 
her duets with rocks, of the deep thunders she sends 
echoing throughcaverns, or of those alarming sounds 
which seem to cry, ‘Help! help!’ No, let us think 
of her on her days of peace, when she is strong with- 
out violence.” * 

‘The sun had absorbed all moisture from the 
earth. The mountain tops swam in summer air. A 
soft melodious Mediterranean south wind, gentle 
precursor of the equinox, blew from the Rhone 
valley. The blue waves of the sea of Syria alter- 
nately whispered and crashed as they frothed over 
the feet of Lebanon. I knew that the wind really 
came from there; only a few hours before it had 
rustled among the cedars and moaned among the 
palm trees. I fancied I could still hear, even with- 
out the illusion of the ear, among its hot blasts the 
flapping of great sails, the pitching of ships on high 
waves, the boiling foam dripping from the prow 
like water hissing on hot iron when the prow rises 
out of the sea, the shrill whistling when a cape is 
doubled, the noise of ripples along the vessel’s'side, 
and the mufiled, hollow strokes of the boat’s keel, 
when the fisherman makes fast on the perilous 
coast of Sidon. 

‘*] sat down for a moment on the root of a chest- 
nut tree, my face towards my empty dwelling. The 
south wind had grown stronger as the sun rose 
higher in the heavens; it blew in dry, stormy gusts. 
Since the sun had begun to sink, the sky was like 
crystal. The wind drew from the woods, the rocks 
and even the grass, harmonies which seemed min- 
gled of sad and joyful notes, embraces and fare- 
wells, terror and bliss; it piled up whirling masses 


of dead leaves, and then let them fall and lie in 
1s pak, ae Mer.” 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


glistening heaps on the ground. This wind had ca- 
resses in its breath, warmth, love, melancholy and 
those scents which dilate the lungs, ravish even the 
ears, and send through every pore the strength, the 
life, the youth of a pure element. It seemed to come 
at once from heaven, from earth, from the woods, 
from plants, from the windows of the distant house, 
from the fireside of infancy, from my sister’s lips, 
my father’s broad chest, my mother’s yet warm 
heart, to. greet me and kiss me on lip and cheek. It 
made the damp hair of my temples flutter under 
my hat-brim with thrills as delicious as had ever 
stirred my golden curls on my sixteen-year-old 
cheeks in these very woods! I drew it in as one 
presses one’s lips to a fountain of clear water. I held 
out open hands with wide-spread fingers, like a beg- 
gar whom one calls to the hearth in winter to get, 
as they say here, ‘a whiff of the fire.’ I opened my 
vest and my shirt, to bare my chest, that it might 
reach my very blood.” * 

The blind can receive all these impressions as well 
as those who see, and perhaps even feel them with 
greater intensity, since all their powers are concen- 
trated in their sensations.f 

The sense of touch is not confined to the hand, 
it exists in varying degrees all over the body; the 


* Lamartine, ‘‘ Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses,” 1849. 

+ In Lucien Biart’s ‘‘ Paysage des Tropiques” there are pages full of the 
profoundest impressions received by other senses than sight in those little- 
frequented countries. ‘‘It was just past midday, the hour of solemn aod 
mysterious silence in hot countries. Not a breath, not a movement, not the 
rustling of a leaf. ‘One breathes fire,’ said the Indian who accompanied me, 
as he lay down naked on the ground to enjoy a siesta. Not a sound, not the 
hum of an insect, a mysterious funereal stillness beneath the rays of the sun 
which usually wakes everything to life. Nothing seemed able to move, fly 
or even crawl, under the burden of air so hot and heavy that it weighed 
down even the gauzy wings of the dragon-flies. And this scorching, stifling 
air was saturated with the stale nauseous smell of districts where yellow 
fever prevails, a charnel-house odour, which those who have once smelt it 
wish in vain to forget. The half-light, the silence, the heat, the mephitic smell 
of the marshy ground, seemed to make me the denizen of a dead world.” 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


skin of the forehead and of the whole face is ex- 
tremely sensitive: the eyes, even when entirely 
blind, are still to a certain extent the avenues of a 
certain amount of sensation. But it is of course the 
ear which records the richest and most varied im- 
pressions. Every one speaks of the great voices of 
nature, tempests in forests and at sea, mountain 
storms, torrents and waterfalls, but generally we do 
not notice or listen to a multitude of tiny sounds, 
charming poetic notes which nature gives us in 
profusion; rustlings, humming of insects in the 
grass, the chirp of crickets, bird notes, the flutter- 
ing of wings, the trickle of a streamlet, the puff of 
wind which only stirs a few leaves. Just as the 
wind animates the visible landscape we can see, so 
it puts movement and life into what I venture to 
call the auditive scene. Thus the trees become liv- 
ing to the ear, they give out special sounds varying 
with their foliage and with the strength of the 
breeze: it is in a sense the colouring of the ear.* 
As a rule we willingly admit that everything, 
mineral, vegetable or animal, can shew beauty of 
its own and harmony with the ‘‘great Whole.” 
We can enjoy and understand Michelet, Ruskin, 
Topffer and their fellows, when they describe the 
charm which the discerning eye discovers in a 


* “Stellus remained motionless, without an aspiration or a desire. At first he 
had only heard a monotonous diffused sound in every direction. Soon he 
distinguished the rustling of trees in each of their separate branches. Then 
he was aware of strange, supernatural noises like the song of fairies spinning 
or the breathing of celestial flutes. The murmur of the wind had a strange 
power. As he listened, Stellus felt new thoughts awakening in him, he 
seemed to know, to understand, and to see the forest living; he realized an 
ineffable soul in trees, in plants, in water, and the singing of the stars 
taught him celestial things. And yet he felt no surprise. These revelations 
seemed only old memories revived, and each fresh idea entered his mind 
like a returning exile. He listened tranquilly, and it seemed quite simple 
that these intuitions should be brought by the wind, like flowers from an 
orchard, blown along the night air.”—-Ephraim Mikhael, ‘‘ Po?mes en Prose.” 
La Solitaire. 

9 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


lump of earth, a fragment of moss, a flying insect 
as it skims or creeps untrammelled; well, then, 
admitting how much we can grasp of the harmony 
of creation, would it not be strange that the sono- 
rity produced by all this should be as nothing to 
us? If a poor dead leaf lying on the ground can 
be clothed in lovely tints and warm shadows when 
the sun lights it up in a special way and a dreamer 
lose himself for an interminable time gazing at it, 
why should not the same leaf in an autumn wind 
produce a tiny yet lovely sound which can arrest 
the ‘‘dreamer of the open ear” ? But every one does 
not know how to listen, any more than every one 
knows how to discover in the very heart of an im- 
posing or majestic landscape, full picturesque de- 
tails and sharply defined outlines, the timid, delici- 
ous charm of a tuft of grass, a ray of sun filtering 
through the branches, or similar effects. 
‘‘Usually,” Daudet truly says, ‘‘descriptive 
writers can only see, and they are contented to 
paint. Turgenieff possesses both smell and hearing. 
He is full of the odours of the country, sounds of 
water and clear atmosphere; he gives himself up, 
without posing for any particular school, to the 
orchestra of his sensations. This music does not 
reach every ear. Dwellers in towns, deafened from 
childhood by the roar of large cities, will never 
hear it, they will not recognize voices in the as- 
sumed quiet of the woods, where nature believes 
herself alone, and man, because silent, is forgotten. 
. .. Pillaut told me something absolutely new about 
his art. A musician of great talent, brought up in 
the country, his very refined ear has retained and 
registered all the sounds in nature; he hears as a 


landscape painter sees. To him each fluttering of 
10 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


wings has its own thrill; the rattle of autumn leaves, 
the babble of a pebbly brook, wind, rain, distant 
voices, rumbling trains, wheels creaking in the ruts 
of the road, all this atmosphere of country life is in 
his books.” 

_  Daudet himself knows how to listen in silence. 
‘*T pushed my boat among the reeds, and when 
the satiny grasses had ceased to rustle, I was well 
walled in, floating on the clear water of my little 
haven in the shade of an old willow tree. It made 
a study for me to write in, and my crossed oars 
served as a desk. I loved the smell of the river, the 
stirring of insects among the reeds, the murmur of 
long waving leaves, all the infinitely mysterious 
movement which the silence of man awakes in na- 
ture. How happy such stillness makes many of us! 
How it calms us! Myisland was more populous than 
Paris. I heard rummagings in the grass, birds pur- 
suing each other, the flapping of wet wings. No 
living thing was startled at my nearness, they took 
me for an old willow tree.” * 

Let us leave the river and follow Taine to Fon- 
tainebleau. ‘‘Sometimes a raven croaked, robins 
twittered in a clear note. In the stillness grass- 
hoppers chirped, and swarms of insects whirled in 
the heavy perfumed air. An acorn drops on the 
dead leaves, a beetle brushes a fallen twig with its 
wings. Gay little bird-notes and trills sound from 
the heights. A whole world lives under these skies 
and in this mossy ground; a turbulent baby popu- 
lation, whose infantile language does not reach the 
ear till it is half stifled by the deep sleeping breaths 
of the great Mother.” + 

Then Edouard Rod takes us up into the moun- 
tains. ‘‘In the midst of the great empty solitude 


***Trente Ans de Paris.” +‘‘ Thomas Graindorge.’’ 
li 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


where nothing is heard but the sound of distant 
cattle bells, or the hum of insects amidst the slum- 
bering echoes which no human voice awakens, I lie 
underneath the firs, drunk with the smell of Alpine 
flowers, or I sit by the brooks where I have slaked 
my thirst, feeling an indescribable sense of well- 
being, as if a weight had been lifted from me and 
I could breathe more freely.” 

And, last of all, René Bazin himself, little as he 
knows it, is a limner dear to the blind. They can 
see and assimilate much in his ‘‘’ Terre qui meurt.” 
The following lines, among many others, seem 
written for them. 

‘‘This Sunday afternoon in summer seemed 
steeped in a deeper peace than usual. The air was 
warm, the light hazy, the wind which had risen 
with the sea, and was driving the tide before it, did 
not bring with it, as it blew over the immense green 
plains, a single echo of life. Not the creaking of a 
plough, not the sound of a spadeful of earth, not 
the stroke of a hammer or an axe. Only church 
bells broke the stillness. They answered each other, 
the bells of Sallertaine, Perrier, St Gervais, Chal- 
lans with its new, cathedral-like church, and Soul- 
lans, hidden in wooded hills. The peals of High 
Mass, the chimes of the Angelus, the three strokes 
of Vespers kept them busy. They rang out into the 
distance the same old words, understood for centu- 
ries, worship of God, forgetfulness of earth, for- 
giveness of sins, union in prayer, equality in face 
of the divine promises; and the words soared into 
the sky, mingling with a thrill, like garlands of 
happiness entwined from one steeple to another. 
There were few among the toilers of earth, the 


cattle drovers and the sowers who did not obey 
12 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


them. Towards evening the bells ceased. Even the 
village topers had left their inns and returned in 
the golden light of the setting sun to their silent 
homesteads. Universal silence enveloped the land- 
scape. Never noisy even on working days, the dis- 
trict was quite quiet and peaceful for a few hours at 
the end of the week. It was a Sabbath rest which 
had a deep significance, a time when spiritual inte- 
rests were uppermost, and the group of families 
peacefully and reflectively counted their living and 
their dead.” 

It would be easy to go on multiplying these im- 
pressions of the senses from the pages of great 
writers, who have communed with nature, but 
these are enough. They show that for those who 
can look close enough, the great enchantress has 
other means than sight of making herself known. 

Let us read the letters, despite their length, of a 
Swiss woman who lost her sight at ten years old. 
She lives in France, but comes back regularly to 
her native canton; and her letters give a good test 
of what a blind woman can experience at different 
seasons of the year and in different parts of the 
mountains. 

‘*Chamosson, September 18, 1895. 

‘*The mountain is an old friend of mine; I had 
not ‘seen’ it again for ten years, and it never seemed 
to speak to me so plainly. It was to Les Mayens 
that I went in search of rest and fresh air during the 
month of August. You go up by regular chamois 
paths, impeded by stones, roots, holes, hillocks and 
every possible obstacle. But with strong boots and 
a cheerful temper all goes well. Besides, the noise 
of the torrent rushing down the ravine, shade from 
the woods on the left 557" and on the right a won- 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


derful scent which already shows you have left the 
plains, all keep you from realizing your fatigue and 
encourage you to climb higher. When you reach 
the first little upland, a fresher breeze meets you; 
confused sounds float down to you—cattle bells, hu- 
man voices, bird notes, which you imagine rather 
than hear distinctly—but these vague echoes seem 
to call you irresistibly, and you cut short your halt. 
You climb, you put on a fresh spurt, you pass one 
chalet after the other, here is your own at last! 
What a pleasure to have reached it! I had a very 
peaceful stay at Les Mayens, rather monotonous 
perhaps, but still no weeks of my life ever slipped 
by quicker. The mountain seemed so living; her 
thousand voices, distinct or confused, speak to you 
incessantly and keep you constantly interested. The 
air is so light that it seems easy even to get to hea- 
ven. Every morning, when the sun had drunk up 
the dew, I used to walk over the pasture lands, 
stopping when a sweeter scent or a more fascinating 
sound than usual reached me as I passed. My fa- 
vourite spot was the outskirts of the neighbouring 
forest; a great pine tree gave me a delicious shade, 
and its rugged, mossy roots made me a comfortable 
and convenient seat. They say that the view from 
thence is magnificent, and I never heard anywhere 
else such restful sounds. In the grass at my feet 
crickets and grasshoppers outrivalled each other in 
their monotonous chirpings, and accompanied the 
waxing or waning hum of the insects skimming in 
the air. Behind me in the woods I could hear a 
branch crack here and there, the furtive flight of 
a bird, or the distant strokes of a hatchet; at inter- 
vals the tinkle of cattle bells floated down to me 


from the heights in alternate waves of veiled or 
14 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


sonorous sound. On Sundays the sweet church bells 
would ring in the valley; sometimes the whistle of 
a train rushing along in the distance roused me with 
its shrill note, as if to remind me that my holiday 
would soon be over, and steam soon be whirling 
me back to rules and duties; but the train rapidly 
disappeared and the pine branches stretched again 
over my head. The scent of the sweet gum in the 
trees and the fragrance of the grass, that exquisite 
mingled aroma which is the real mountain perfume 
still floated in the air. When a breeze stirred the 
woods and sent a long echoing thrill through all the 
boughs, [involuntarily pictured myself on the shore 
at Nice, and fancied I could hear in the distance 
the ceaseless murmur of the sea—not that the roar 
of the waves resembles the rustling of branches, but 
both sounds have a certain vagueness and a mys- 
terious note of sadness which lulls and soothes you 
like a song. I don’t know how the days passed; I[ 
wrote letters, and knitted a few stitches, and played 
with my small companion, a lively little girl with a 
a sweet voice, who was always exclaiming, ‘Oh, 
Auntie, how lovely it is at Les Mayens!’ She ran 
about picking flowers and putting them on my lap 
while she made them into nosegays. When I was 
her age I picked flowers too, and could see them 
opening in the fresh grass from as far off. In my 
memory I can still see, at will, a certain meadow 
beside a half-ruined chalet; it was the best place 
for flowers. There were the wide blossoms of the 
great white marguerites which seemed to smile di- 
_ rectly they saw me coming, blue harebells, shining 
yellow buttercups and that very lovely pink heath 
which you can never pick in valleys. I too used to 
return carrying a brilliant, variegated sheaf. Then I 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


could admire colours, now [I listen to voices; I draw 
no comparison, but I enjoy voices as I did colours. 
If mountain places overflow with life and move- 
ment by day, night brings with it a solemn stillness. 
No sooner has the sun sunk behind the peaks than 
the hum of insects and the whirring of their wings 
is suddenly silent, as if a magic wand had hushed 
all this exuberant region into a death-like sleep. A 
strangely chilly atmosphere rises from the glacier 
and steals over the mountains—a wind, untainted 
with dust, which barely stirs the plants and the 
grass, penetrates you, and in a few minutes makes 
you forget the heat of summer. Soon the cattle 
bells cease one by one over the pasture lands; all 
sinks into calm and rest. Then suddenly the ‘yodel- 
ling’ of the shepherds, singular and never-to-be- 
forgotten sound, breaks out, and is answered from 
different points; it begins on a high long-sustained 
note, and ends in four shorter ones in a descending 
scale; the forests and rocks echo it in chorusand pro- 
long it with strange dissonances. The shepherds of 
to-day can answer each other without fear; they no 
longer hear, as did their forefathers, supernatural 
accents mingled with their cheerful ‘yodellings.’ 
Unlucky was the wight who answered those fan- 
tastic voices. Even this year I felt a thrill again at 
the oft-times-told tale which our old mountain story- 
tellers relate. [ listen every night to the shepherds 
calling, and when at last silence reigns supreme 
over the mountain I[ gratefully enjoy the stillness 
and feel more intensely than ever the eye of God 
watching over us.” 
‘*September 30, 1895. 

‘‘Tt was such a lovely day that I could not leave 

without tasting some esny picked grapes, on the 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


spot where they grow; they are particularly good 
this year. I decided to go to the Coteau des Crétes; 
I remembered it as one of my favourite spots. We 
cross the principal village street with its uneven 
houses, the walls sending into our faces blasts of 
the heat which the sun has been pouring onto them 
for the last ten hours. Sunday is a real day of rest 
in the village. .. . No carts, no sound of working 
implements; here and there a group of men and 
women in front of their doors, talking and discus- 
sing ‘tout a la douce,’ leisurely, like people with 
plenty of time on their hands. But | am ina hurry 
to get out of this hot, stifling atmosphere. At length 
we leave the last houses behind us, a fresher, lighter 
air surrounds us, no obstacle checks the cool cur- 
rent of air coming down from the mountain, it 
reaches us as a reminder of the rarefied air at the 
summit. Our road leads us through meadows sha- 
ded, at intervals, by fruit-trees easily distinguishable 
by the various aromas of their branches; the smell 
of ripe fruit gradually replaces flower scents, the 
short grass where one’s foot already crushes dead 
leaves only gives out a warm, indefinite odour; 
autumn is really here, all is mellowed and ripe. We 
reach the vines, the path narrows and begins to 
ascend; we leave the shade; sunshine fills the air. I 
do not seek to shelter my head; on the contrary it 
is pleasant to feel myself penetrated by life-giving 
heat which contains no impure emanations. We 
skirt a thorny hedge and reach our destination, the 
summit of the hillock. Our vine is at our feet, but 
- I have no wish to go scrambling down its tiers; I 
leave that to some one more nimble, and prefer to 
sit by the footpath and once more enjoy the deli- 


cious language which nature speaks to those whoare 
17 2 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


willing to listen to her. As a child I used to love to 
look down from this hillock: the vines stretched be- 
fore mein sinuouslinesdownto the plain; on one side 
I could see fields of waving corn, on the other the 
Rhone like a long white streak; on the left a chain 
of grey rocks, on the right roofs with their plumes 
of smoke. I have retained the picture, but then 
only my eyes were attentive, in my memory no 
sounds remain. How marvellous is Nature! If she 
hides from you her colours and smiling distances, 
she reveals to you and lavishes on you charms 
which you ignored, perhaps sweeter and dearer 
than what she used to show you. How varied is her 
language! . . . Each spot, in different seasons of the 
year, has its particular voice. What I hear hereis not 
what I could hear on the mountain. The warm air 
round me stirs languidly, the leaves hardly move 
under its breath; the insects, attracted doubtless by 
the sweetness of the ripe grapes, seem to buzz more 
softly; the voices of pedestrians reach me clearly 
but faintly from below; all sounds seem mufiled, 
the landscape is alive but very peaceful. Suddenly I 
am startled by a shot which breaks through the 
harmonious stillness—doubtless fired by a sports- 
man. At the sudden, sharp report, the rock wakes 
up with a thundrous echo; a second and a third shot 
follow, the echo redoubles and rumbles in fury, as 
if indignant at being roused out of repose. But the 
air becomes quiet once more, and sounds more in 
accordance with the peaceful surroundings strike 
on my ear. I hear the bells of St Pierre village, 
their quavering is unmistakable; for centuries they 
have rung for living and dead. How beautiful they 
sound to me from here, calling to Vespers! .. . The 
rock answers their oe half-melancholy voice 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


by such a vague, subtle sound that it mingles with 
all the other noises of the vineyard. I wanted to 
tell you before I leave about my lovely walk of 
yesterday, but when I got back to Villeurbanne I 
felt as if I could no longer speak of it. The whistle 
of factories, the rolling of tramcars, the hoarse 
voices of hawkers, are such an unsuitable accom- 
paniment for recollections and memories of nature’s 
voice.” 
‘‘January 4, 1896. 

‘* Does nature speak to the blind in winter? Why 
not? Is not the very silence expressive? I have just 
been for a very short walk to pay a visit. A round- 
about way took us quite into the country. The air is 
calm, dry and cold, but the sun smiles on us, and it 
is a joy to feel the gentle warmth of its rays. It isa 
fine winter’sday, one of those days thatinvites youto 
walk, and as you go you feel less and less tired. The 
hard snow crackles under our feet. How much I 
prefer such a carpet to the dust of summer! ‘All 
the country is white and evenly covered,’ says my 
father, ‘only the trees stand out boldly.’ He looks, 
and I listen. What peace, what absolute stillness 
everywhere! All life seems to have ceased. But no; 
now and then out of this universal silence come 
soundsof livingthings. A woodpecker skimsthrough 
theair, giving his metallic note. Inthe distancecrows 
are sending up hoarse and imperious cries of hun- 
ger. Here, close to the road, snow is falling from 
the branches of a tree, and a little further off a 
brook is running with its bright, clear music. If it 
were a solemn, poetical stream, it would be silent; 
no poet has ever yet consented to let a ‘brooklet’ 
babble ‘in the death-like winter.’ But this tiny rill 


takes little heed of these immemorial rules; it goes 
19 a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


hurrying on with the greatest animation, as if to live 
and speak for all the voiceless objects on its banks. 
But gradually I lose its life-like voice in the distance, 
silence surrounds us again, and I can only catch the 
crackling of snow under my feet. ‘Nature in winter 
is the symbol of death’; this is a sad image, and 
is expected to steep one in sombre melancholy. But 
I do not feel this lugubrious impression. This sleep- 
ing landscape in its peaceful rest speaks calmly and 
solemnly to me. It is true there is something about 
it of the ineffable quiet of a graveyard; but even 
this impression is not saddening. The silent graves 
will have their awakening; the buried countryside 
awaits the spring.” 


The blind can also have favourite spots; they 
prefer to be rather isolated, and protected from 


‘profane noises.” I know, in the mountains of 


Dauphiné, a certain habitation which, though fa- 


“amous for its view, makes me almost uncomfort- 


ne 


able. It overlooks a great market town, with fac- 
tories, forges and large schools, in fact, endless 
varieties of village noises which rise ceaselessly, 
and sound close by. So if those who can see retain 
the illusion of solitude because of the immense 
panorama of mountains surrounding them, the ear 
of a blind person is incessantly filled with sounds 
which appear too near at hand for him to realize 
that he is in an isolated spot. In this respect hear- 
ing is most arbitrary ; ina town the person who can 
see feels as if he were in the country when he finds 
himself in a beautiful flower-bordered avenue of 
trees, whether it be in a public or a private garden— 
or at least so he says. For the blind this abstraction 
is very difficult, they eae get away from the 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


busy rattle of traffic which, in Paris for instance, 
can be heard quite far into the Bois de Boulogne. 
Amongst trifling noises must be reckoned, first of 
all the noise of machinery, which mars auditive 
impressions in perhaps the same way that the sight 
of them spoils the view. In fact, there are many 
interesting parallels of this kind to be drawn. The 
farther a motor is, in its construction, from the 
scheme of nature, the less elegant and graceful in 
shape it becomes; it is not, in a word, esthetic. It 
is rare for an agricultural machine to be pleasing to 
the eye, and it is never so to the ear. It is admitted 
on all hands that sowing, reaping, cutting or thresh- 
ing machines are infinitely less picturesque in shape 
and action than the implements they replace or the 
gestures of the labourer who uses them. Well, their 
sounds are just as inferior. It is only at a consider- 
able distance that the whizzing of a threshing ma- 
chine or the click of a reaping machine are not 
absolutely horrible; whereas the sound of a scythe 
cutting through the grass, or the measured stroke 
of a flail falling on sheaves, although not beautiful 
in themselves, are quite in harmony with the gene- 
ral scheme of nature. The rumbling of carts, and 
the whistling of engines are unbearable, and unless 
they are in the distance, they spoil the auditive 
landscape far more than would the rolling of car- 
riage wheels, or the trotting of horses’ hoofs in the 
road. For the blind person who wishes to receive 
impressions from nature, when out walking, nar- 
row paths are better than wide. That is easily un- 
derstood; crossways suggest more than wide roads, 
and footpaths are preferable to either. And, indeed, 
a footpath is soft to the feet, and varies in its sur- 


face more than would be believed; sand, grass, 
21 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


moss, protruding roots, pebbles, dry leaves, crisp 
or smooth twigs—all of these things which can be 
easily recognized are infinitely more pleasant than 
the dusty asphalt of wide roads, which is as tiring 
in its want of elasticity, as it is insipidly monotonous. 
Then in the footpath we are near things, here and 
there a branch touches us, we crush the grass, birds 
rise at our approach, wesmell the vegetation, leaves, 
flowers, grasses, each with its separate odour. 

‘*It was two o'clock on a September afternoon, 
the footpath skirting the meadows was bordered by 
upstanding grasses, like a natural handrail to guide 
and assist quick walking. Sometimes we are in 
bright, hot sunshine, sometimes in the shade of 
rows of poplars which cool the air, and bring sweet 
smells from the meadows. Coming back, the sun 
has set, but the wind is in the south, and the air 
quite warm. Farther and farther in the distance, 
we are accompanied and saluted on our way by the 
chirp of the cricket, like a little outrider shaking 
his bells in the night.” 

Of course light is wanting to this description, 
and the great magic of sight. I have known what 
it was, and after many years [ still feel a thrill 
at Taine’s beautiful lines on ‘‘Les Iles d’Or.* In- 
deed I do not intend in any sense to belittle the 
scope and importance of eyesight. I only wished 
to point out that the blind can have their share of 


*“*In January, at Hyéres, I used to see the sun rise behind an island; 
light gradually filled the air. Suddenly, on the summit of a rock, a flame 
burst out; the great crystal sky widened its vault over the immense expanse 
of sea, the countless little ripples and the deep, even blue of the water where it 
was crossed by astreamof gold. At evening the distant mountains were tinged 
with mauve, lilac and the yellow of the tea-rose. Insummer thesun’s illumina- 
tion fills sky and sea with such splendour that the senses and the imagina- 
tion rise into a glorious apotheosis; each wave sparkles; the water takes the 
jewelled tints of precious stones, turquoise, amethyst, sapphire and lapis- 
lazuli, as it undulates beneath the universal and immaculate purity of the 
sky.”—‘‘ Philosophie de I’ Art.” 

22 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


the pleasures of nature. This share is not usually 
understood by those who, although not blind, want 
merely to ‘‘look” and not to ‘‘see” ; then they only 
hear instead of listening, or, what matters far more, 
feeling. They do not saturate and intoxicate them- 
selves with aromas, fragrances and sonorities as 
does the attentive blind man who has not been 
numbed by the loss of vision. His impressions are 
wonderfully varied, harmonious and reminiscent. 
The seeing man who wishes to reflect or meditate 
deeply, closes his eyes, and by this means com- 
pletely shuts off the exterior world; it is in this 
separation and isolation that he imagines the blind 
to dwell. Edmond de Goncourt writes in his jour- 
nal: ‘‘ Well, perhaps a year or two’s blindness be- 
fore I die would not be such a bad thing; it would 
be a separation, a divorce from nature; in her bril- 
liant colouring she has been such a captivating mis- 
tress to me! Perhaps it would be given to me to 
write a book, or rather a series of purely mental 
notes, all philosophical, and written in the shadowy 
world of thought.” 

But why does the seeing man imagine that dark- 
ness would cut him off from everything? Because, 
accustomed as he is to live principally by sight, and 
to receive nine-tenths of his impressions through 
his eyes, when he closes them, he is far more 
struck by what is wanting than by what he has not 
forfeited. Furthermore, his mind is taken up with 
the subject that caused him to isolate himself, and, 
as a rule, he does not prolong this experiment sufh- 
ciently to accustom him to think of what he does 
not see, or to concentrate all his attention on the im- 
pressions he receives through his other senses.* 


* In the ‘‘ Nouveaux Essais sur I’ Entendement humain” (il, ix), Leibnitz 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Finally, it is necessary to have what Topffer 
calls a sixth sense, one which has no organ. It gives 
us impressions, as charming as they are useless, for 
the practical and ethical guidance of life, which 
doubtless is the reason that all are not endowed 
with it. But what does this sixth sense feel or see? 
It smells, it hears, it sees, it touches—in a word, it 
unites the functions of the five others, but in a world 

which they have never entered. I have spoken of 
foliage, lakes, the sky; well, in all these things this 
sense feels a charm which depends neither on green 
nor blue nor on brilliant light, a charm caused by 
these sights though not contained in them; they 
excite and provoke feelings which they could not 
originate. I can affirm that this charm exists, but 
how describe itP Seek to fix it, it evaporates; seek 
to detain it, it evades you; approach it, it is gone! 
Sensation, pure and simple, is only the very humble 
handmaid of my sixth sense, furnishing it ceaselessly 
with matter for feelings and dreams, helping it to 
stray in the pleasantest manner in the world, in a 
lovely, limitless country, which is not the material 
earth seen by your eyes, and trodden by your feet.* 

Of course I do not pretend that all blind people 
respond to the influences of nature; they as well as 
those who can see need this sixth sense which was 
so wanting in Madame de Stael when she wrote to 
Fauriel who had admired Lake Leman, ‘‘ You still 
have countrified prejudices.”” When the Alps were 
praised, she exclaimed, ‘‘Oh! for the gutter of the 
Rue du Bac!” Alas! every man has not the soul 


speaks of minor perceptions ‘‘ which we do not notice in our present state. 


It is true that we could perceive and reflect on them, if their multiplicity did 
not confuse our thoughts, or if they were not obliterated by more important 
sensations.” 

*Topffer, ‘‘ Réflexions et Menus propos aad Peintre genevois, ou Essai 
sur le Beau dans les Arts.” sis 


CONTACT WITH NATURE 


of an artist, all who have eyes do not see the poetic 
effects of light in wood and meadow. No, every 
one does not feel the necessity of localizing and sur- 
rounding the great emotions of his life, amid im- 
pressions of nature, and associating her with them 
all; but there are certain temperaments that cannot 
dissociate anything from nature. Some of these 
exist amongst blind girls; they are not numbed, as 
I have said before, they are only rendered ‘‘atten- 
tive by their loss.” They also make part of the infi- 
nite impulse towards reverie, and poetry, that 
awakes, as we realize how fleeting life and all 
human impressions are, in the face of nature; of 
nature the unchanging, though we return to her 
after so many changes in ourselves. 

Yes, the blind can feel their heart uplifted or 
depressed by overpowering feelings, in some spot 
which a sad or happy memory has consecrated, 
each time they return to it. No, they are not indif- 
ferent to where they live; they can enjoy nature, 
and be penetrated by its charm, they can exclaim 
with Hugo:* 

O douleur! j’ai voulu, moi, dont l’ame est troublée, 

Savoir si l’urne encore conservait la liqueur, 


Et voir ce qu’avait fait cette heureuse vallée 
De tout ce que j’avais laissé la de mon cceur! 


Que peu de temps suffit pour changer toutes choses, 
Nature au front serein, comme vous oubliez! 

Et comme vous brisez dans vos metamorphoses 
Les fils mystérieux ou nos coeurs sont liés. 


* “*Tristesse d’Olympio.” 
I seek to know, my mind oppressed with grief, 
If perfume lingers yet within the urn, 
Or if the vale, lovely beyond belief, 
Will echo, as my mournful steps return. 


Briefly your wand can change the face of things, 
Calm Mother Nature! vexed by no regret, 
Spinning the thread that round our pathway clings, 
Catching our feet ere its magic net! 
2 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Dieu nous préte un moment les prés et les fontaines, 
Les grands bois frissonants, les rocs profonds et 
sourds, 
Et les cieux azurés, et les lacs et les plaines, 


Pour y mettre nos coeurs, nos réves, nos amours! 
God decks His world in beauty day by day; 
Thro’ leafy wood the blue sky seems to smile; 


Lake, plain and cavern, take one voice to say, 
‘*Here may poor mortals rest and dream awhile.” 


26 


“SEEING” OUR FELLOW-CREATURES 


@, Il. ‘‘Seeing” our Fellow-Creatures 


F a blind girl gifted with an appreciative artis- 
[: nature be not isolated by her infirmity, and 

can, on the contrary, feel pleasure and delight in 
all living surroundings and in the savour of the 
very air she breathes, she will certainly be keenly 
attracted to the society of other human beings. 
Besides, the unprejudiced view whichlooksuponthe 
blind as insensible to the charms of nature is modi- 
fied with regard to their position towards their fellow- 
creatures. Still, the admiring surprise shown by 
many people at being recognized by their step, 
their voice or the pressure of their hand, proves in 
itself their ignorance of the real attitude of the 
blind towards those about them. They concludethat 
those without sight can only grasp purely moral and 
intellectual conceptions, so strong is the opinion that 
physical differences in people are only discernible 
to the eye. Consequently many imagine that a blind 
person, surrounded by his acquaintances, who are 
merely exchanging commonplaces, cannot recog- 
nize anyone who does not give his name or say 
something to give a clue to his intellectual identity. 
This is an error; most people have auditive, tactile 
or olfactory characteristics, which are perceptible 
on the slightest contact, and taken together or even 
separately, suffice to make them recognized. Gogol 
writes:* ‘‘Dear friend, if you wish to render me 
the greatest service that I expect of a Christian, 
collect these little treasures (little daily events) for 


* Epilogue to ‘‘ Lettres.” 
27 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


me, wherever you find them. It would not give you 
much trouble to make notes like the following every 
evening in the form of a diary: ‘Heard such an 
opinion; talked to so-and-so; he is in such and such a 
position; his character is thisor that; he is good-look- 
ing and well-bred, or the contrary; he holds his © 
hands so; he uses his handkerchief so; he takes 
snuff inthisway, ... ina word, all that youreyeper- 
ceives, from great events to the merest trifles.” 

Nothing is mentioned here except what can be 
seen;no allusion is made to feeling, hearing or touch; 
yet Gogol was a great observer. Are these last im- 
pressions so delicate that exceptional perceptions 
are necessary to receive themP 

Not in the least; only, as I said before, the man 
who can see is so absorbed and satisfied by the 
impressions his eyesight records, that he simply 
ignores smell, hearing and touch. In analysing the 
atmosphere whichany person exhales, we findit vary 
sui generis according toage, health, habits ofhygiene, 
food and drink; it is affected by intentional causes, 
such as the constant use of any one perfume, by 
accidental causes which have become habitual, such 
as smoking, and something may be known of the 
wearer's profession by the sort of clothes, mate- 
rials and gloves he affects. Every one can testify to 
this; we only need to concentrate our attention, to 
discover that one old lady smells of ether, another 
of sandal-wood, pepper or some old-fashioned pow- 
der which preserves fur. Some fashionable young 
women use this or that scent, one man smokes 
Turkish tobacco, the smell of which is stronger 
than the scented soap he uses; another prefers a 
pipe, and a third, a cigar—spirits, wine, coffee, 
pastry, soaps, toilet De woollen stuffs, furs, 


“SEEING” OUR FELLOW-CREATURES 


kid gloves (especially when heated by the sun or 
by the hot air of a drawing-room or a theatre) these 
all make their presence known. Then there are the 
objects we habitually handle, such as wood, iron, 
copper, oil paints, medicinal herbs; thus the car- 
penter, the locksmith, the tailor, the shoe-maker, 
the painter, the printer and the chemist, do not 
diffuse the same odour. Clothes quickly absorb the 
atmosphere that they are most constantly worn in, 
the foul and exhausted air of offices, the steam of 
kitchens, the smells of a painter’s studio, all im- 
pregnate woollen materials and cling to their wear- 
ers. Some people wear mackintosh, heavy black 
garments and countless other clothes. All these 
things make up a complete range of olfactory im- 
pressions, which, in the aggregate, are alternately 
agreeable, attractive, indifferent or unpleasant, but 
useful in differentiating and characterizing people, 
without the help of vision.* Sometimes it is suffi- 
cient to pass quickly from one atmosphere into a 
very different one, for the olfactory and tangible 
impressions of the former to cling to clothes. Who 
that has been ill in winter, and remained in bed or 
by the fireside for several days, has failed to notice 
the strong, sudden current of cold which the doctor 
or nurse brings from outside as they approach us? 
‘*She [his mother] came back from some morning 
errand tothe town... bringing with her an odour 
of sun and summer from out of doors. . . . She bent 
over my bed to kiss me, and then I wanted no- 


* We have received the following in a letter from America: ‘‘I can tell 
you of a fact which is not generally known, and that is, that in deaf-mutes, 
the sense of smell is as much developed as it is in sporting,-dogs. Julia B—— 
can take a dozen gloves, and after smelling the hands and faces of several 
people present, she can return each glove to the hand it belongs to. Helen 
Keller recognizes the clothes of people about her, even when they have been 
washed. And another girl, Elizabeth R——, if she stands by an open win- 
dow, can tell by the smell who is coming towards her.” 


29 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


thing more—I stopped crying, and did not try to 
get up or go out.”’* 

But if we bring with us something of our late 
surroundings, the temperature we go into acts very 
perceptibly on our clothes. You have just arrived, 
you are out of breath, and breathe rather loudly, 
you blow your nose, you cough, often that is suf- 
ficient to reveal your name to an attentive ear, for 
there is individuality in these functions. There is 
much, perhaps, in our walk—grace, or awkward- 
ness, vulgarity or good manners, are fairly appar- 
ent in walking. The ring of a footstep, its cadence, 
the different rhythm of sex, age, physical type or 
even moral character, acquired habits, and the pre- 
occupation of the moment, all can be heard in the 
step. Firmness, indecision, carelessness, roughness, 
calm, gravity, indolence, activity, timidity, courage, 
affectation, vanity, natural simplicity, fatigue and 
vigour can all be discerned upto a certain pointinthe 
step. Notice, for instance, and listen toaservantigoing 
downstairs to do a commission for you; he goes at 
quite a different pace when he is going out on his 
own business, particularly if it be in secret; in the 
former case he walks in his usual way, more or less 
fast, as the case may be, but you feel that he is at 
ease, ‘‘taking his time”; in the latter case there 
will be something timid and embarrassed about 
him, you can tell that he is anxious to disappear 
quickly without attracting attention, and it is just 
this anxiety which arrests the attention of a keen 
ear. It is quite evident that in a curtained, carpeted 
room, or out of doors on gravel, grass or snow, 
footsteps become confused, characteristics are mini- 
mized and disappear. On the other hand, if you 


* Pierre Loti, ‘‘Le Roman d’un Enfant.” 


30 


“SEEING” OUR FELLOW-CREATURES 


walk in slippers, or change your usual footgear, it 
is possible to ‘‘make up” (‘‘grimer”) your step and 
bearing, as you could your physiognomy. 

Children’s footsteps differ very much from those 
of adults, the cheerful, active, springy youth has 
not the same walk as the heavy middle-aged man, 
who feels his own importance, and wishes to im- 
press others; he moves complacently, self-conscious 
in his walk, as in his speech, while the step of quite 
an old man will be slow and dragging. Slim, elastic, 
graceful girls and young women have a kind of 
rhythm in their feet which the woman of forty, 
even if still distinguished and charming, loses as she 
sobers down—and the ear will not confuse the lat- 
ter’s step with that of a vulgar, fat woman, devoid 
of all charm or distinction. 

The nature of the garment worn, be it a long or 
short dress, full or scanty, silk or wool, can also, 
by various forms of rustling or crackling, give a 
clue to the wearer’s personality. Then there are 
objects usually worn, the extras, so to speak, of the 
costume: spurs and swords for soldiers, or rosaries 
and bunches of keys for nuns, while the starched 
caps and veils of the latter give out very percep- 
tible sounds according to the gesture which moves 
them. 

Some tricks of habit can be heard at once. I know 
a nun who when she has anything very important 
to say always lifts her cap a little with one hand. 
I had noticed and remembered this peculiarity long 
before I heard it remarked upon by a man who 
could see it. Some people play mechanically with 
their eyeglasses, watch chains, etc. It is needless 
to say that any movement made with a fan, a card 
case, or a newspaper, awe heard more distinctly 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


than if the hand alone moved. Then there are cer- 
tain movements which cannot be made in silence, 
because of the friction they cause; if anyone turns 
sharply, waves an arm, moves leg or head, all this 
can be heard. In listening to a person talking you 
can tell if he be standing or sitting, upright or bend- 
ing forward, tall or short, because of the direction 
from which the sound comes; you can trace by this 
means many gestures of the head and body, and 
his various changes of positions. If anyone walks a 
few steps with you, giving you his arm or hand, you 
can easily imagine his general air and carriage; 
sometimes it is sufficient to walk next to anyone 
and brush his elbow, for though the elbow is very 
inferior to the hand as an agent of sensation, still it 
does convey a certain amount of contact. 


‘*T did not see her, but I heard her,” writes a 
blind woman. ‘‘I knew that she was graceful, calm 
and sweet, as standing at the door she pressed my 
hand in farewell. And I shall always see that pic- 
ture of her in my heart.” Here the blind woman 
could well say she ‘‘saw” a picture in her heart, 
since she possessed two fresh means of knowledge, 
the contact of the handclasp and the voice. 

‘*Upon the doctor’s doorsteps one day Paul stood 
with a fluttering heart, and with his small right hand 
in his father’s. The other hand was locked in that 
of Florence. How light the tiny pressure of the one! 
how loose and cold the other!”* 

‘* Anatolia held her hand out to me and said in her 
turn, ‘Welcome!’ Her gesture was free and frank, 
and the contact of her hand communicated a sen- 
sation of generous strength and practical kindness, 


* Dickens, ‘‘ Dombey and Son.” 
32 


“SEEING” OUR FELLOW-CREATURES 


she seemed to pledge herself to me in a kind of bro- 
therly compact. Her ringless hand was neither too 
white nor too long, but vigorous in its purity of 
form, strong to lift and to support; supple yet firm, 
its smooth back diversified by the relief of joints 
and the network of veins, with valleys of softness 
in the warm concave palm, which was a wonder- 
ful centre of magnetism.”* 

Indeed, hands give very diverse tangible impres- 
sions. In how many varied ways it is possible to 
shake hands! From the complete full- grasp of a 
sincere, frank, open person to the fawning, hesi- 
tating pressure of the cunning and crafty. Persons 
whoare very affectionate, rather excitable, orrather 
nervous, shake hands with warmth and emotion; 
timid and embarrassed ones never know how they 
- are going to offer you their hand; some barely give 
you two fingers. Certainly there is a complete 
compendium of the whole person with his or her 
physical and even moral characteristics in the 
structure of the hand, and also in its gestures, con- 
tractions, etc. Graphologists will not contradict 
this, since their curious deductions can only be ar- 
rivedat by closecorrelation between the most hidden 
traitsin a person’s character, andthe instinctive con- 
tractions and movements of his hand. Now if we 
admit that our disposition can betray itself in move- 
ments which we make mechanically with pen or 
pencil, it is natural and even unavoidable that one 
human hand in contact with another, should reveal 
something ofthe character and feelings ofits owner. 


Il me semblait déja dans mon oreille entendre 

De sa touchante voix l’accent tremblant et tendre, 

Et sentir, 4 défaut de mots cherchés en vain, 

Tout son coeur me parler d’un serrement de main; 
*D’ Annunzio, ‘‘ Les rere aux Rochers,” 


-— 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Car lorsque l’amitié n’a plus d’autre langage, 
Le main aide le coeur et lui rend témoignage.* 

It would be easy to multiply quotations showing 
that the hand contact so perfectly understood by 
the blind, is perhaps even stronger than sight. Mi- 
reille and Vincent looked at one another, it is true, 
but they did not tremble or blush until their hands 
met. 


Comme dans un seul sac les brins étaient roulés, 
Sous la toile o& leur main s’avance, etc.T 


Francois Coppée, in some charming lines, shows 
us the father and mother of little Amédée Violette 
on the balcony. 

‘*It was cool on the high terrace. The sun had set. 
The great clouds now looked like mountains of gold, 
and a pleasant smell of grass rose up from the sur- 
rounding gardens. M. and Mme Violette did not 
join in the conversation. Perhaps they were not 
even attending to it; and when night had com- 
pletely fallen, they gently took hands in the dark 
and looked at the stars.” t 

Coppée has this verse in his ‘‘Chanson d’Exil”: 


*“T felt as if I could already hear the touching accents of her gentle voice; 
failing the words that would not come, her whole heart spoke to me in the 
pressure of her hand. For, when friendship is at a loss for words, the hand 
aids the heart and is its witness.”—Lamartine, ‘‘ Jocelyn.” 

+t ‘The twigs were all heaped in the same sack, their hands crept under the 
canvas, and inadvertently (honi soit qui mal y pense) they met. They 
trembled and blushed, their souls were kindled by a hitherto unknown fire. 
Mireille was agitated and withdrew her hand. Vincent addressed her in his 
softest voice: ‘What troubles you, Mireille? Has a bee stung you?’ ‘I 
know not,’ she answered low. And as they both bent over their basket- 
making they watched each other roguishly to see which would smile first. 
Their hearts beat fast, and the work went on apace. ... The white hand 
and the brown kept meeting in the sack, whether by accident or design, 
and clasped each other. This little trick amused them very much.”— Mistral’s 
‘*Mireille,” from the Provencal Dialect. 

+ ‘* Toute une Jeunesse,” Coppée. 


34 


“SEEING” OUR FELLOW-CREATURES 


Triste exilé! qu’il te souvienne 

Combien l’avenir était beau 

Quand sa main tremblait dans la sienne 

Comme un oiseau.” 
Further, does not hand-contact, like proximity, 
simultaneous movements and rhythm, constitute a 
great deal of the attraction which dancing always 
has had and will haveP Dancing produces the 
greatest possible impression on blind people; it sets 
every nerve vibrating, and the very privation of 
sight enhances the excitement. 
A new sensation due to modern invention is the 

power of hearing people’s voices long after they 
have ceased to be present, and being able to hear 
them speak, sing, laugh, even breathe as at the 
moment they were beside you. Will not the oral 
record which the phonograph is about to preserve 
in the interests of friendship (though it may some- 
times endanger them), will not this record produce 
‘3 impression as vivid as any known hitherto? 
After many years of separation during which a great 
friend is often forgotten, after promises of life-long 
devotion, would it not be more agitating to hear his 
voice than to see his portrait? ‘‘I should never have 
known him by his face; but his voice revealed what 
his face hid from me.”} The voice of a man is his 
whole personality. If the eyes are the ‘‘ mirror of the 
soul” the voiceis the soul’s echo and breath, the voice 
is the most infallible interpreter of the innermost 
feelings. { 


***Sad exile, do not forget how fair the future seemed when her hand 
trembled like a bird in thine.” 

t Dante’s ‘‘ Purgatorio,” canto xxiii. 
- [The voice is a human sound, which nothing inanimate can imitate suc- 
cessfully. It carries authority and an individual claim, which is wanting to 
handwriting. It is not only air, but air modulated by us, impregnated with 
our vital heat, enveloped in the vapour of our own atmosphere; our identity 
gives it a certain configuration and special power of affecting other minds. 
Speech is but thought incarnate.” are ‘*Pensées.” 

5 A 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Toa human being the great charm of soundisthat 
it is essentially expressive. It causes him to share 
the joys and, above all, the sorrows of his fellow- 
men. Grief finding vent in words generally moves 
us more profoundly than if expressed in face or 
gesture.* Those who are not blind are often expert 
in voice expression. Horace Mann says: ‘‘ Feelings 
of anger after punishment cannot be entirely con- 
cealed; the child’s eye and especially the sound of 
his voice never fail to betray him. His manner 
is constrained; he cannot play with ease; his glance 
shifts as it meets that of the master, or else he fixes 
him with a defiant look. It is not unusual for him 
to be especially particular in performing his tasks, 
the better to hide his projects of revenge. But his 
most subtle organ, the voice, unfailingly betrays him. 
These indications will show the master that peace 
is not yet established in the little heart.” 

It is not so much the tone of the voice, in a musi- 
cal sense, that we have to consider: kindness or 
harshness, bitterness or sweetness, stupidity, intel- 
ligence, an inclination to indecision or dreaminess 
betray themselves in the accent and vibration of 
the voice, in inflexions and in the shape of words, 
so to speak, and this, I repeat, independently of the 
tone which in itself may be insignificant, spiritless 
and weak, or of things said which may be ordinary 
and commonplace. ‘‘I have just come back from 
Mme L’s. .. . What a good soul! I think the whole 
world finds favour in her eyes. Directly she meets 
you, as soon as she opens her mouth, you recognize 
and know her for what she is: kindness, simple, 
unaffected kindness itself! Her voice is rather 
quavering and monotonous, her words a little slow; 


99, 66 


* “Tart au point de vue Sociologique”; ‘‘Problémes de I’Esthétique con- 
temporaine”;Guyau. 
36 


‘‘SEEING” OUR FELLOW-CREATURES 


but you forget all that directly, because of the 
sincere cordiality which rings in her speech. It is 
with the moral and intellectual quality of the voice, 
as with the graphological meaning of handwriting, 
which is shown by its shapeand style, independently 
of the words it reproduces. When the phonograph 
is perfected, when it becomes the custom to repro- 
duce at different ages and under varying emotions, 
the voices of people whom we love or feel an inte- 
rest in, as their faces and attitudes can now be 
photographed, then we shall be able to fix, analyse, 
assemble, and compare those elements hitherto so 
essentially fugitive and, so to speak, dependent on 
an experiment which perforce had to be unique 
and unchallenged by verification. For, after all, how 
is it possible to compare, discuss and control by 
various tests that which as a rule has only been 
heard by one person who, again, has only recorded 
it in his memory and can only compare it with his 
own recollectionP 

Those only who are obliged to depend principally 
on hearing would be aptest at observing and study- 
ing those moral and intellectual characteristics of 
the voice, so easy to catch, and so indiscreet in their 
revelations. Must not something of the delicate, in- 
timate charm of such observations, when only made 
by the few, of necessity disappear when they are 
the subject of classes in a ‘‘laboratory of experi- 
mental psychology,” and they become, in a sense, 
public property? I should be inclined to think so, 
but we must be prepared to lose in poetry what we 
gain in exact science. When, after long absence, 
you meet some one who has had a great physical 
shock or a heavy mental trial, you can see directly 
if he be bent, wrinkled or dim-eyed; and, sufficiently 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


warned by the visible footprints of sorrow, that 
irreparable ruin which it rends the heart to see in 
those we love, you go no further. You do not no- 
tice if the voice has also altered, lost or diminished 
its clearness, lowered its pitch or become slightly 
tremulous; these changes in the voice are what 
wrinkles are to the face. The organ is modified 
according to the whole physiognomy.* 

It is rare for an acute ear to be much mistaken 
as to the real or alleged age of a speaker. Words 
like the following have been put into the mouth of 
the blind: ‘‘ Now that my eyes are closed, you can 
grow old, for you will never change for me.” Alas, 
they only speak so in books; in real life they feel 
painfully the flight of time over those they love, and 
M. de Pontmartin was mistaken when he wrote the 
following lines: 

‘*T have always thought that the charming legend 
of Philemon and Baucis would be more convincing 
if Baucis and Philemon had been blind. In marriage, 
as understood by really exceptional natures and as 
our Holy Mother the Church presents it to us, blind- 
ness would be a great grace. .. . The reason why 
ordinary marriages are exposed to so many perils 
and tribulations, and often to ridicule, is that the soul 
only plays a secondary part in them, and is almost 
ignored. Love seems at the mercy of a caprice of 
the senses, a disfiguring illness, an unbecoming 
pregnancy, white hairs and wrinkles, want of taste 
in dress and age, especially age, which seams the 
skin, dims the complexion, swells the cheeks, 
makes the portrait a caricature, and beauty into 
amemory only—nothing of this exists for the blind 


* “She spoke in a voice that was the perfect musical expression of the 
forms which produced it.”—D’ Annunzio, ‘‘Les Vierges aux Rochers.” 


38 


“SEEING” OUR FELLOW-CREATURES 


husband and wife. The clock of their church stopped 
at the hour when they entered it, to receive the 
nuptial blessing. They are as young to each other 
at sixty as at twenty-five.” 

Of course some more or less delicate and expres- 
sive voices alter and age much earlier than others, 
but nearly always the features are in harmony with 
them.* . 

It is generally noticed in women that brunettes 
have contralto, and blondes soprano, voices. Each 
individual, then, has a voice and a manner of speak- 
ing which is as individually his own as his face.f 

‘*It was between Lausanne and Geneva—lI be- 
lieve that my mind was a complete blank—that the 
train stopped at a station, the door opened, a tra- 
veller got in, and came towards me. I did not catch 
the first words he spoke to me, but I awoke from 
my abstraction with a sudden start. That voice— 
where had I heard it before? But, after all, was he 
speaking to me? The new comer recalled himself to 
me; he had often visited our school in Lausanne, 
and he thought he recognized an old pupil in me. 
As he spoke, my memory returned; the unaffected 
voice, the crisp, incisive speech, the manly tone 
which age had mellowed, making it tremble ever so 
slightly without taking away from its sonority, that 
cordial voice, the most magnetic thing in the world, 
all this caused me extreme pleasure. I recognized 


* Nul signe de fatigue ou d’une ame blessée, 
Ne trahissait en lui la mort de la pensée. 


+ People often wonder if, apart from music, the blind can really enjoy the 
theatre, or if the privation of the ‘‘action on the stage” prevents them from 
following the play? The truth is that most blind people are very fond of 
going to the theatre. ‘‘ Few,” writes one, ‘‘enjoy an opera or a vaudeville 
more than I do; all plays interest me except the pantomime.” And, of course, 
with the ear alone, it is not at all difficult to follow a scene of several per- 
sonages, and, unless the cues are too confused or the actors’ voices too much 
alike, you quickly identify each as he or she returns to the stage. 

39 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


him; [ could not be mistaken in pronouncing the 
name of M. R . It was he. He seemed sur- 
prised and pleased at my faithful memory. During 
the visits he used to pay to our establishment, he 
had not spoken more than once to me individually, 
but we were so fond of our sympathetic visitor that 
as soon as he came in, and we heard the first sylla- 
bles of his friendly greeting, a murmur of satisfac- 
tion ran through the room.” 

Perhaps there are more voices than faces which 
resemble each other, perhaps a little more time and 
contact are necessary for the memory to record an 
auditive physiognomy than a visible one; this is pos- 
sible but not certain; then, as we know, the blind 
are not limited, in identifying anyone, tothe charac- 
ter of the voice; they have other clues. The follow- 
ing extract from a blind woman’s letter strikes me 
as very significant on this point: 

‘*During the last few years that M. G—— has 
lived in this neighbourhood, there is one continuous 
concert of his praises; his visits are an honour, his 
intelligence is quoted, his wisdom appealed to and 
his piety proclaimed; he is a ‘perfect’ man, never- 
theless I must confess that he does not please me, 
and his physiognomy is not sympathetic tome... . 
Each time I meet him, I listen, I analyse him, andthe 
impression remains the same. I am convinced that 
some day events will justify my instincts, hitherto 
they have never misled me. Still I do not believe 
myself gifted with any special perspicacity, but I 
certainly think that in these matters we can see 
more clearly than those with eyesight, for what we 
observe speaks to us more unmistakably than what 
they look at. I do not often inquire what are the 


features or the expression of such or such a one— 
40 





“SEEING” OUR FELLOW-CREATURES 


have I heard him speak P The image of him which 
my ear conveys cannot be influenced by the wit- 
ness of others’ eyes. But to return to M. D——; 
I had not met him for thirteen months, he was an- 
nounced at M. P ’s. I listened to his coming, his 
light, yet over-precise tread recalled Walter Scott’s 
description of Olivier le Dain’s entrance into the 
audience-chamber. M. D——’s bows to me; I dread 
his shake of the hand, what is there so antipathetic 
about it? I can’t tell, but I should know it amongst 
a thousand. He assures me that he is delighted to 
see me again; I don’t believe it, and feel relieved 
when a seat is offered him at some distance from 
me. Aconversation isstarted; heisthe chief speaker, 
and I am able, without indiscretion, to take him to 
. pieces at my leisure. His musical, rather feminine 
voice is gracefully modulated, and lends an insinua- 
ting charm to his easy flow of words. But in his soft 
tones I catch a secret, indefinite thrill, something 
which inexplicably repels me, and tells me unerr- 
ingly that his speech and heart are not at one. His 
laugh confirms this impression: it seems afraid of 
itself and rings false. We now enter on religious 
topics; oh, on this point M. G is most edifying! 
What beautiful sentences fall from his lips! Still all 
this annoys me; I could almost get up and protest 
against all these holy things; the more I listen to his 
voice, the less truthful it sounds to me.” 

But the critical sense is not always working; in 
some tones of the voice, as in some eyes, there is a 
fascination, a caressing charm. Many blind people 
are attracted by the sheer music of the organ, as 
those who can see are caught by the velvety beauty 
of a glance. They allow themselves to be ensnared, 


spellbound; they will not hear, or do not listen to 
41 : 








THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


intellectual and moral characteristics. ‘‘One day, 
when I was young,” says an old blind spinster, 
‘‘T heard a young man recitesome quite insignificant 
comic pieces at a concert, I paid no attention to 
them, but I have never forgotten the sound of his 
voice. It penetrated my very heart; I felt an intense 
wish to know and speak to him; it was a kind of 
irresistible attraction, and I was obliged to exercise 
the full force of my will to prevent myself con- 
stantly thinking of his voice.” The irresistible 
charm which certain voices have for certain people 
is not only recognized by the blind. We remember 
the verse of the Canticle of Canticles, ‘‘My soul 
melted when he spoke,” and these words of Lacor- 
daire: 

‘‘At the sight of the human face, where begins 
the revelation of the invisible world, man becomes 
troubled. He would not shed a drop of his blood for 
the universe as a whole: he is ready to give it all 
for the creature of a day or an hour. A look de- 
cides him, and if speech be added, if that power 
which in nature is only a sound, a murmur, a me- 
lody, become a living voice which reveals the 
thoughts of the soul; then that love which was only 
an instinct in him is transfigured with the soul’s 
image, and death itself is powerless in presence of 
a sentiment only dependent on moral beauty.” 

Thus contact by vision is not indispensable for 
singling out, even physically, any one individual, and 
becoming affected by his presence. We can feel 
attracted and charmed by what I have called the 
‘‘auditive physiognomy ”; apart from any apprecia- 
tion of morai or intellectual qualities. This appre- 
ciation is on quite another plane, and can gradually 


increase. A young blind wife writes of her husband: 
42 


“SEEING” OUR FELLOW-CREATURES 


‘*T love in him the sound of his voice. Even when 
he is speaking of ordinary, commonplace subjects, 
I feel an infinite charm. As soon as I hear him my 
heart beats and I feel happy. Besides the freshness 
and youthful vigour which echo in his voice, it has 
exquisite inflexions in pronouncing certain words. 
He does not speak my name like the rest of the 
world; in his mouth it sounds sweet and delightfully 
musical to me—I love his large, firm hand; when 
it presses mine it conveys emotion, joy, inexpress- 
ible tenderness, enthusiasm and virile force; when 
he touches my arm to speak to me, I feel enveloped 
by astrong and tender protection. I love his steady, 
resolute step, I feel in it what mine lacks, I love to 
feel his silky hair under my fingers. I love to hear 
him breathe, as if his breath were a sweet perfume 
—oh, I love him altogether, I see him from afar 
with his ever-rapid step, the brisk movement with 
which he opens and shuts a door; I know his way 
of putting a key into a lock, and I love all that too. 
Are his pictures handsome? I know nothing of that. 
For me his whole soul is in his voice, his whole heart 
in the handclasp which ends all our dear talks.” 


43 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


@, Ill. The ‘‘ Voices” of the House 


LL houses are not alike to the impression- 

able and observant blind woman, any more 

than all faces can be. The family house, 
where successive generations have left stored-up 
memories, the beloved house where childhood and 
long years of life have been spent, where some great 
emotion of life has been felt, becomes even to a 
blind person a living thing, a being imbued with her 
own life and individuality. When she is far away, 
and recalls her home, it is naturally not a visual im- 
age that will remind her either of her home or of 
her experiences there; but we know that such im- 
ages are not the only ones that can be graven on 
the memory, and there are other impressions be- 
yond those received through the eyes, which are 
capable of moving the heart and recalling the past. 


Je parcourais du pas tout le champétre enclos, 

Ou, comme autant de fleurs, mes jours étaient éclos; 
J’écoutais chanter l’eau dans le bassins de marbre; 
Je touchais chaque mur, je parlais a chaque arbre, 
J’allais d’un tronc a l’autre et je les embrassais, 

Je leur prétais le sens des pleurs que je versais, 

Et je croyais sentir, tant notre 4me a de force, 

Un coeur ami du mien palpiter sous l’écorce.* 


Besides a general type and topography which the 
blind woman can perfectly grasp and retain, many 
houses and apartments have sometimes a strongly 


defined aspect, or, so to speak, an olfactory, audi- 


*“*T wandered slowly over the meadows where my days had passed as 
flowers blossom, I listened to the water singing in the marble basin, touched 
each wall, and spoke to every tree, going from trunk to trunk and kissing 
them. I tried to think they understood the reason of my tears, and I felt as 
if under their rugged bark a heart akin to mine was beating.” —Lamartine, 
** Jocelyn.” 

44 


THE “VOICES” OF THE HOUSE 


tive, tactile physiognomy. This strikes people whose 
sense of observation is not limited to visual impres- 
sions. * 

‘*Tn the hall each step echoed on the tiles between 
the subterranean depths and the reverberating 
heights of the staircase. [t was the real ancient at- 
mosphere and hereditary odour proper to old rural 
dwellings; smells of cooking, the mustiness of cellars. 
Personal exhalationsfrom bedrooms combined in un- 
equal proportions; the faint mixture of lavender 
and iris mixed imperceptibly with the emanations of 
mildewing stuffs; a strong air, a subtle perfume, im- 
pregnated with life and death as the chateau itself, 
filled as it has been in turn with cradlesand coffins.” + 

Henri Lavedan also has remarked the type of old 
house in the provinces, ‘‘with heavy portals, and 
lugubrious stone staircase, smelling of raisins, cellar 
and cat.” It is certain that the fruit shelves and the 
cupboards of a good middle-class house in a small 
town, filled in autumn with jams, the traditional 
prunes, apples, preserved grapes, intended to supply 
winter desserts till after Palm Sunday, exhale 
through their cracks characteristic whiffs, making 
the hall and staircase smell quite differently from 
Parisian back premises, which are too small to keep 
large stores and are limited to the dessert of the day, 
with recollections of the day before and hints of the 
morrow: desserts at which fancy cakes and shop- 
made preserves eke out home-made dainties that 
would taste and smell stronger. 


*“ Gradually I got to know the smallest details of the old dwelling, the 
- feeling of the walls, the warping of the canvas of certain old pictures, the 
chips in cabinets, certain blocks of the flooring which bent under the foot, 
imperceptible nothings which I have never forgotten, and all the noises of life 
and the silences to which I was attentive.”—Henri de Régnier, ‘‘Jours 
heureux.” 


+ Art, Roe, ‘‘L’Assaut de Loigny.” 
45 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Different again is the smell which hangs round 
the refectory of a college or community. The poor 
man’s house has not the same atmosphere as that 
of the rich, and in each of these categories there 
are many degrees and shades. Almost every room 
has its special smell which comes from its draperies, 
stuffs, the wood of the furniture, etc., and is especi- 
ally due to its inhabitant and to his habits. He uses 
certain soaps, toilet washes, scents; hence, as I said 
before, we get a whole scale of odours from the 
rural basil and lavender, to the latest, subtlest blend 
of fashion, giving the note and special character of 
the habitation. 

‘*My aunts inhabited rooms on the second floor. 
My Aunt Marcelline’s room was hung with a light, 
flowered chintz and had padded chairs to match. 
The chintz had a special smell which mingled with 
the remains of scent in the bottles on the toilet 
table. ... At the head of the bed a gold watch 
hung ticking on a nail. I put my ear close to it to 
listen. .. . The smell of scent grew stronger as the 
window was kept shut. ... A gold-coloured moth 
would sometimes come out of the old arm-chairs in 
the drawing-room; it flew on dusty, downy wings 
through the silence, in a vague odour of camphor 
and smoking lamp-wick. Each room had its special 
smell. I can well remember that of the stables be- 
low; it was composed of meat, game, wood, dress- 
stuffs, and in the midst an old carriage gave out a 
smell of damp leather, varnish and dusty cloth.” * 

Then thereisthe ‘‘ voice” of the house, made up of 
the familiar sounds of its interior life. A sick woman 
wrote some months after her brother’s death: ‘‘I 
think of blind people much more than I work for 


* Henri de Régnier, ‘‘Jours heureux.” 
46 


THE ‘“*VOICES” OF THE HOUSE 


them, for in my confined life the functions of the 
ear become daily more important. Think how quiet 
a house is, inhabited only by two women, and what 
significance the sound of an opening or closing door, 
or the echo of a footstep, has in such a silence; re- 
member that for eleven inactive years I could only 
keep in touch with my brother by listening to him 
in the distance when he was at home; he was too 
busy to give me more than a few minutes at a time, 
and still, after more than a year and a half I have 
sudden illusions; then it is that I think of the blind.” 
The noises made by doors and windows often vary 
very much, as Gogol so aptly puts it: 

**T don’t know why the doors creaked so—was it 
because the hinges were rusty? Or had the car- 
penter who made them concealed some secret me- 
chanism in his work? I don’t know if this could be, 
but the strange thing was that each door had its 
special voice. The bedroom door was the lightest 
soprano; the dining-room, a rolling bass. As for that 
which closed the hall, it gave out a queer, plaintive, 
quavering sound; on listening very attentively, you 
could distinguish the words, ‘I am freezing, Mas- 
ter.’”* 

We have the special sonority of footsteps going 
hither and thither, the greater or lesser echo in cer- 
tain rooms, staircases and landings; then outside 
noises, which can be noticed in certain rooms at cer- 
tain hours and seasons: the bell, the church clock, 
timepieces in neighbouring houses, whichin summer 
can be heard strikingin their different tones through 
the open windows. Then the carpenter’s plane, the 
anvil of the smith opposite, the muffled roar of the 
train, the bells of the diligence, which persistently 


* "Mes petits péres,” Russian familiar address of servants to masters,—Trans, 
47 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


passes at a fixed time and waits at the bottom of the 
street, its horses stamping under the afternoon flies. 
Then the shouts of the street boys of the neighbour- 
hood, who from generation to generation have played 
in front of this special door, in this tiny market- 
place, always with the same cries and doubtless at 
thesame games. The children at play and the grown- 
up people who watch them have given place many 
times to othersin turn, but the scene has not changed; 
the traveller who returns, be he blind or no, listener 
or onlooker, is carried back once more to his child- 
hood, when he envied the street boys at their games, 
probably because he was not allowed to play in such 
a public spot. You can hear the creaking of a pump, 
the plash of the street fountain; from the other side 
comes the noise of a poultry run, and the cries of 
swallows, who come and build their nests always 
under the same eaves of our old homestead and are 
more faithful than ourselvesto the annual stay under 
the parental roof. Dear little swallows, don’t think 
that you do not exist for the blind man! True, he 
cannot see you, but as you come and go, you call, 
you twitter, you make a soft, harmonious brushing 
with your wings; he hears and loves you! Then 
there is the great fir tree in the garden, with its 
ever-recurring wail in the autumn wind; in spring 
it always shelters the same birds, singing the same 
notes at the same hours. 

Breaths of sweetness from beds of mignonette, 
carnations and roses, are wafted on the night air 
into the rooms. In a word, the wandering air, the 
atmosphere of the old patriarchal house is unmis- 
takable; it enfolds you; your heart sinks or rises 
at its contact or even at its memory, suddenly re- 


called to you by some tangible, olfactory or audi- 
48 


THE ‘‘VOICES” OF THE HOUSE 


tive sensation you have experienced there. ‘‘I was 
in bitter grief, but I involuntarily noticed the most 
insignificant trifles. The room was very dim and 
hot; it smelt of peppermint, eau-de-Cologne, ca- 
momile and Hoffmann’s drops. This odour made 
such an impression on me that when I happen to 
smell, or even remember it, my imagination carries 
me back directly to the dark, stifling room, and 
calls up all the details of that dreadful hour.’’* 

And d’ Annunzio says: ‘‘ He leaned his head on 
his mother’s knees, growing calm under the ma- 
ternal touch. A sob still shook him from time to 
time. The far-off sorrows of his youth took vague 
shape and crossed his mind once more. He heard 
the twittering of swallows, the whir of the knife- 
grinder’s wheel, voices shouting in the street, well- 
known noises of former afternoons, noises which 
made his very heart sick. + 

Places recall memories to the blind as well as to 
those who can see. When you come back to a house 
or a garden where you have received some great 
impression, where a ‘‘piece of your life” has been 
spent, the memory of long-past events and feelings 
revive with joyful, or, alas! more often with sor- 
rowful, intensity. Neither is it a matter of indiffer- 
ence to the blind, any more than to those with eye- 
sight, to pass their lives always in the same house, 
where memories can be accumulated and classified 
so that they can be recalled, instead of being scat- 
tered pell-mell amongst the fleeting impressions of 
a more or less nomadic life. A blind person in a 
town or a house is as much confused by the absence 
of familiar sounds as by hearing strange noises, or 


* Tolstoi, ‘‘Souvenirs.” 
+ ‘‘Le Triomphe de la Mort.” 


49 4 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


rather noises which were not to be heard where he 
was in the habit of living. 

One can accustom oneself to an ‘‘atmosphere of 
sounds,” which, in a sense, lives with us, and is, so 
to speak, the ‘‘auditive horizon.” The solitude of 
places is not purely objective; there is an important 
subjective side to this impression, for you feel all 
the more lonely and isolated when surrounding 
objects and sounds are unfamiliar to you, recalling 
none of your preoccupations and unassociated with 
none of your daily cares. After the lapse of several 
days the interest in life returns; you have lost 
some associations, you discover others; but during 
the first hours of days when the sound of the clock 
is new, footsteps are strange and recall no one, and 
the opening or shutting of doors is no clue to who 
is coming in or going out; then the sense of solitude 
is very vivid. And it is by no means the same thing 
whether you wake up to the old-fashioned chimes 
of a quiet Flemish town or to the whistles of a fac- 
tory district in Lyons. 

Here again progress has not always taken a poe- 
tic direction. Nothing was so pretty as to hear in 
a town, and especially in a village, each hour an- 
nounced by a bell, the Angelus, the Curfew, the 
call to school on week-days and to church on Sun- 
days—convents, private schools and even the large 
work-rooms, ‘‘works” as they used to be called— 
regulated all their movements by the sound of a 
bell which assembled the workmen; and steam- 
boats announced their arrival by loudly ringing the 
bell in the stern. In the distance this was not un- 
pleasant; it was sometimes quite poetic. But we 
have moved with the times; ‘‘ works,” which now 


call themselves manufactories, announce by a stri- 
50 


THE ‘*VOICES” OF THE HOUSE 


dent and prolonged whistle, the hour of work; 
steamboats arrive with the bellowing of sirens, 
everywhere whistles replace bells. The Town Hall 
and all secular buildings which hope to supplant the 
Church, will perhaps wish to give some auditive 
signal for the principal divisions of the day; they 
cannot let off cannon like the Eiffel Tower; they 
will not, like the belfries of the Middle Ages, bor- 
row from religion her mode of calling to prayer, 
they doubtless consider it more appropriate to the 
modern lay spirit to borrow from factories the 
signal for work which the steamer uses, to mark 
the ‘‘legal limit.” So that probably in future, we 
shall grow quite accustomed to the strange formula, 
‘*There goes the fifteen or seventeen o’clock whis- 
tle,” (la xvme, la xviime heure a sifflé). .. .” 
Then it will no longer be possible, at the close of 
an ever-to-be-remembered day, to say with a sigh, 
‘*‘We must part, it is the peaceful hour of falling 
_ dew. Did you hear ? Theevening Angelus has rung.” 

Some may smile to read the foregoing, and may 
think such things very trivial, perhaps even very 
material. But others, I hope, will understand, be- 
cause they know how infinitely many are ‘‘les fils 
mystérieux dont nos coeurs sont liés.” And they 
will realize that a blind woman also can be bound 
by them. Who does not carry in his mind’s eye 
some corner of a house or garden, which he loves 
to people with dream-memories? Our heart loves 
to linger there, for it seems that there in the dis- 
tance, we have been, or could yet be, happy—there 
dreams, desires or regrets are born, and we love 
the spot the more. Our life and that of those we 
_ love, is spent perforce in material surroundings, 


amongst objects often insignificant in themselves, 
51 4" 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


but which take a meaning from our contact. They 
retain this significance long after those who im- 
parted it are gone, and they become, in a sense, 
mementoes of life. They exist to preserve to us 
certain pages in our lives, which otherwise would 
be effaced; to remind our poor fickle hearts of those 
we loved—and whom we cannot always remember, 
and lastly to recall us ourselves to those who pro- 
mise always to remember us, but who perhaps 
would very quickly forget us without these tangible 
relics of our passage. Do not let us dwell on these 
aids to memory. It is in the natural order of things 
that the general type and class of a house and its 
furniture would change. But it ought to be by de- 
grees, and with much much respect and caution, 
without violent upheavals, and without attempting 
to ignore time, that indispensable agent in all har- 
monious and durable formations. Nothing is so sad 
as an old dwelling that has been roughly stripped of 
furniture; it is bitter to those who remain, unpro- 
fitable tothose leaving, and even repugnant to casual 
observers. It is a hateful and anti-social custom, to 
separate in such a way what time and man had 
joined together. The family home is a living per- 
son; let us not mutilate it! Let those who forsake 
it, going far afield to found a new home, a branch 
of the old one they are leaving, because they must 
**grow and multiply,” take some things away with 
them. Well and good, but let them be relics, not 
dislocated fragments. A great leafy tree has given 
us pleasant shelter and a resting-place after a tiring 
expedition; when we start again, if we pick some 
of its leaves and fruits, it is not to despoil a kind 
friend, it is that we may take away the slips and 
cuttings that will make it live again, or to tie a 


green sprig of memory to our travelling knapsack. 
52 


FINDING ONE’S WAY 


BOOK II. Physical Activity 
@, I. How to find One’s Way without Eyesight 


' X Y E have not solved every problem by 
accumulating and testing impressions 
from contact with persons and things; it 

remains to be seen how the blind girl stands, as re- 

gards the material side of life, and what her own 
disposition and feelings are. Let us, first of all, 
ascertain how she finds her way about. 

Has it ever happened to you to enter your house 
at night without a light P Did you not find your way 
across the courtyard, through the hall, and up the 
stairs? In spite of the darkness you put your key 
in the lock, you reached your bedroom, where you 
found the matches on the mantelpiece. If you are 
fairly handy and methodical, [am sure that you did 
allthis without too much feeling about, and you upset 
nothing. Now, this aptitude for getting about, and 
finding objects in the dark, in familiar places, which 
necessity suddenly reveals to you, is also the pre- 
rogative of the blind. The latter daily cultivate it 
instinctively, and in them it is highly developed. 

It would be a mistake to compafe the power 
which blind people, under some conditions, possess, 
of guiding themselves and finding their way, to the 
faculty inherent in many animals of reaching their 
destination in complete darkness. For animals have 
instinct, the five senses are not enough to explain 
the phenomena observed *—it is supposed that they 


*See Fabre, ‘‘Souvenirs entomologiques,” Ist series; and Capitaine G. 
Reynaud, ‘‘Les Lois de l’Orientation chez les Animaux,” ‘‘Reyue des Deux 
Mondes,” March 15, 1898. ‘ 

5 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


have a ‘‘sense of locality.” Man, on the con- 
trary, whether he have the use of his eyes or not, 
has no other faculty for locality but sight, and 
in him the sense of locality results from asso- 
ciation and reason, not from instinct. It is not very 
difficult to retain in one’s mind the plan of a room, 
a house, a garden or a town. Try to call up the 
mental picture of a room topographically described 
as follows: Fifteen feet by twelve, window on one 
of the smaller walls, door opposite window, mantel- 
piece in the middle of the long wall which faces 
you as you enter. The principal pieces of fur- 
niture are grouped thus: bed in the right-hand 
corner behind the door, large writing table between 
mantelpiece and window, bookcase opposite man- 
telpiece, to the left of bookcase, dressing table, to 
the right, cheffonier; two-or three arm-chairs to the 
right and left of fireplace; chairs in corners, occa- 
sional tables here and there, but principally near 
the fireplace. Well, although you have never seen 
the room, have you not a very clear idea of it? 
The topography of a house is more complicated ; 
still if the construction be fairly regular, it does not 
require a great effort to understand and retain it, 
if there are a great many irregularities it may take 
time to study them. As to the garden, let us sup- 
pose it bounded on the south by the house first 
of all, and then by the fence of the poultry yard, 
on the north by a high wall, on the east by a 
wooden paling and‘a row of large trees, on the 
west by a low wall, and having: a fountain nearly 
in the centre. Eight principal paths adorn and 
divide this garden; one to the south, one to the 
north, one to the east and one to the west; 


four others start from the four sides and lead 
54 


FINDING ONE’S WAY 


up to the fountain. [t is quite simple to picture 
these long lines, the mind easily retains their posi- 
tion, and they serve as starting points for the de- 
tails to be noticed later, such as little alleys, 
arbours, clumps of fruit-trees, baskets of flowers, 
patches of vegetables, etc., etc., which themselves 
will stand for landmarks. The topography of a town 
impresses itself on the memory, by the same 
means. You go from simple to complex ideas; first 
the important roads, the river, if there be one, 
squares and the principal monument; then when 
these landmarks are well retained, you gradually 
group round them the detailed indications; little 
streets, irregularities, etc., which are pointed out 
to you by degrees. 

‘*But,” we hear you object, ‘‘ It is not enough to 
carry the topography of places in the mind, how 
can we get about a room, a house, a garden, a 
town, without eyesight P How can we know where 
we are, and not lose ourselves at every moment? 
In a room we can touch the furniture and walls, 
but walking about the house is more difficult, we 
run the risk of falling downstairs. Then how can 
we manage in the garden, or in the street?” Well, 
remember what I have already said about the 
communications and connexions of the blind man 
with the external world; he hears, he smells, he 
touches (not only with the hand, but with the whole 
body, and particularly with the foot), he can utilize 
these diverse sensations in practical ways. Do not 
therefore let us imagine a blind girl afraid to make 
a movement unless her hands are stretched out 
before her, for ever fumbling and tapping either 
indoors or out, and afraid to venture into the gar- 
den. If she be in the want degree intelligent, with 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


any instincts of movement, and activity, she feels 
about very little, and has other means of taking 
her bearings; she moves hither and thither and 
generally manages to touch the right objects in fa- 
miliar places, we may be sure. She turns every- 
thing to account; hearing, smell, the touch of foot 
or elbow, draws reasonable inferences from the 
impressions she receives, and utilizes them. We do 
not, I repeat, find our way about merely by tan- 
gible means, but also by auditive and olfactory clues. 

In a room the window looking on the street or 
garden is nearly always a landmark, when open or 
even shut it admits sounds from outside, such as 
wheel traffic or the song of birds. The fireplace is 
also a clue; if the fire is alight, it can be heard 
crackling, or its warmth is apparent; then there is 
often a clock on the mantelpiece, whose ticking is 
also a guide. A vase of flowers, a wash-hand stand 
with its varied odours of soaps and toilet washes, 
even a bird cage, are landmarks which it is not 
necessary to touch in order to locate them. A car- 
pet in the middle of the room, a mat by the bed, a 
hearthrug are indications to the feet; then one’s 
elbow brushes against a curtain, a portiére, or the 
angle of a piece of furniture in a familiar place; 
the knee encounters a heavy arm-chair, or an 
ordinary chair in a usual position, all these well- 
known indications are practical helps. I will give 
an example, and the reader must excuse the 
explanation being necessarily minute and compli- 
cated, but it has to be so, in order to answer a 
question which has been put hundreds of times. 
Supposing that a blind woman loses her bearings 
for a moment, as often happens, owing to the rapid 
noisy movements of several people P Well, she feels 


FINDING ONE’S WAY 


with her foot the corner of the carpet in front of 
her; the parquet floor is at her left and also behind 
her; that guides her to a certain extent, but there 
are two corners to the carpet which both reach 
parquet flooring, one to the left, and one to 
the back of her, as the carpet stretches in front 
of her to the right. How is she to know which 
of the two corners she is standing on? The noise 
from the street which is heard on the left, and 
indicates the window, will decide; as the carpet 
stretches in front and to the right and the win- 
dow is on the left, the blind woman must neces- 
sarily be between the middle of the room and 
the window, for if she were on the other corner of 
the carpet, she would hear the window on her 
right; therefore she must face the fireplace a little 
to the right, and have her back to the chiffonier, 
the bookcase, etc.; the door must be at the end of 
the room to her right. She takes a step to the left, 
so as to be within range of the fireplace, and she 
hears the clock ticking; a little further on she can 
smell the flowers in the vases; she is therefore 
perfectly sure of her position without having touched 
anything: no looker-on would even have noticed 
her moment of hesitation, without he happened to 
be very observant and accustomed to the blind. 
Indoors, the foot is a great guide, for it can im- 
mediately discover tiles, boards, parquets waxed 
or otherwise, a woollen rug or fibre mat, a strip of 
bamboo or cocoanut matting, oil-cloth, linoleum, 
etc, etc. There are several ways of ascertaining the 
approach to a staircase; sometimes the first step is 
in stone and is in abrupt contrast with the carpet; 
sometimes a very slight inequality may be easily 
felt, sometimes a strip of stair carpet begins or ends 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


suddenly—sounds and special echoes in certain 
rooms and passages, smells and various noises are 
precious clues which are easily remembered. As a 
man with eyesight remembers visible surround- 
ings, so the blind man retains the memory of audi- 
tive environments; the former when he enters a 
room which has been enlarged, although not other- 
wise altered, will have the impression, even after 
a long absence, of greater size; the latter by his 
hearing will realize the same thing as he walks or 
speaks in the room. 

In a very large, luxurious apartment, heavily 
carpeted, with curtains and portiéres which muffle 
all sounds, the blind man is very much puzzled to 
discover his whereabouts, he cannot get about 
alone if he has not been able beforehand to exa- 
mine each piece of furniture carefully, or to pass 
in review an inventory of the contents. Further- 
more, for him to find his way about a room, he 
must be allowed to see the arrangement of it and 
to touch, however lightly, the principle pieces of 
furniture. Of course if he is always led from the 
door to the seat intended for him, without being 
taken round this room or the others which he passes 
through and asked to discover for himself the 
general arrangements he cannot tell where he is, 
and, unless the topography be very simple, he will 
not be able to grasp it. 

The blind man can neither find his way nor cir- 
culate easily and safely in either a very small room 
full of scattered furniture, or a large empty one 
where the foot only finds a wide, smooth surface, 
either of polished parquet flooring or of very flat 
even carpet. The landmarks wanting in the latter 


are numerous it is true in the former, but they are 
58 


FINDING ONE’S WAY 


confusing in getting about unless after long habit. 
The most convenient are medium-sized rooms, 
with furniture ranged along the walls rather than 
arranged in isolated groups—unless a room is very 
large and very full, an inventory can soon be made. 
And, of course, it is not necessary for getting about 
and finding the way to make a list of ornaments, 
trifles, pictures, wall-brackets, trinkets, etc. It is 
sufficient to see in a bedroom, the door, window, 
fireplace, bed, chest of drawers, wardrobe and 
table; in a drawing-room, beside the doors, win- 
dows, fireplace, piano, sofa, principal chairs, tables 
and consoles. The knowledge of minor objects will 
follow later, and their position be retained in the 
memory. The best way of starting on the first or 
general inventory is to go round the room, mak- 
ing the door, the fireplace, or the bed the starting 
place; coming back to it each time we have ascer- 
tained the position of any object by means of its 
surroundings. On taking possession of a room, even 
for one night, this little tour of inspection must be 
made. In proportion, I should say the same of the 
garden or suite of rooms—it is better to devote five 
minutes to ascertaining the arrangement of our bed- 
room, and half an hour, or an hour if necessary, 
to learning the topography of the house where we 
are going to spend several days, so that we can after- 
wards come and go freely and find what we want 
alone, than to be perpetually obliged to ask favours 
of others, because we would not take a little trouble 
to get acquainted with the contents of the house. The 
short and preliminary inventory has also the effect 
of teaching the blind man, if he be at all accustomed 
_ to travelling, the class and consequently the tariff of 

the hotel he is stopping ats the position and dimen- 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


sions of the room, the comfort of the draperies and 
furniture, the arrangements, the cleanliness of toi- 
let requisites will all indicate within a few pence 
the price of the lodging. And we may add in pas- 
sing that the same thing applies to restaurants; the 
way the table is laid, the thickness of the crockery 
and glass, the polish of the plate, the manners of 
the waiters, the tone of conversation and a certain 
something in the air, will enable the experienced 
blind man to say with practical certainty, ‘‘Our 
lunch will cost so much,” before he has tasted his 
cutlet or boiled egg. 

Of course it is not enough to have spent a few 
minutes in a room, or a few hours in a house, to 
acquire that precision of movement which enables 
a fairly clever blind person to put his hand uner- 
ringly on the object required though he knows its 
position, or to stop mechanically without counting 
his footsteps outside a door or at the foot of a stair- 
case; to do this he would have to possess in his 
arms and legs that sense of the exact distance to 
be traversed which the pianist has in his fingers; 
but at least he remembers that a certain thing will 
be found in a certain spot, and, with a little atten- 
tion and preliminary fumbling, he will find what 
he is seeking. Repetition of the same movements 
creates habit, which quickly brings ease and secu- 
rity. When a blind man has occupied the same 
house during several weeks, it becomes, barring 
special complications, a lasting memory; when he 
returns, even after many months or even years of 
absence, he feels quite at home. At first he may 
feel some slight hesitation, owing to the difference 
between the dimensions of the familiar premises he 


has left and those to which he has returned after 
60 


FINDING ONE’S WAY 


partly forgetting them. If he takes possession of 
a large room after taking spending a long time in 
a small one, although he may not hesitate about 
the position of the smallest objects, he will feel for 
the first few hours or even days checked in his 
movements; he will try to touch things which he 
cannot reach without changing the position of his 
whole body. When he has got out of the way of 
walking about in wide, long corridors and suddenly 
finds himself back in them again, even if memory 
has perfectly retained their topography down to 
the smallest details, at first he feels a certain awk- 
wardness and sense of strangeness, he fears he has 
passed the stopping point when it is still some dis- 
tance off, but this impression passes quickly and 
the old feeling of security returns. 

As we leave the house for the garden, our foot 
continues to discover a certain quantity of indica- 
tions. In the garden I have taken as an illustration 
one path will be laid with fresh gravel, another with 
fine sand, and another has not been relaid for some 
time and gives hardly any sound. The path leading 
from the house to the fountain shelves abruptly 
upwards, whereas the one under the north wall is 
almost concave, the ground there is often damp, 
and the last path is unmistakably wider than the 
others; a border of box runs along both sides of 
the paths to the east and west of the fountain. The 
foot can easily distinguish between a stiff, firm row 
of box and an edging of limp, almost creeping, 
plants; even if the fountain happens to stop, there 
is no fear of falling into the water round it, since 
the foot comes in contact with the sloping edge, 
and is stopped. The shade of a certain tree, the 
bright sunshine in a particularly exposed part of 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


one of the paths, the smell of a special basket of 
flowers in a familiar spot, the effluvia and the noises 
of the chicken-run to the right of the house, are so 
many clues which enable the blind man to find his 
way about perfectly; he can come and go without 
the slightest hesitation. Besides, the arrangement 
of such a garden is easy to remember and the land- 
marks numerous; the sound of the fountain always 
indicates the centre, noises from the street the 
north, the east can be remembered by shade and 
clumps of trees, under the low west wall runs a 
flower-bed which the foot discovers at the edge of 
the path, while the three other paths lead straight 
to the wall. To the south is the house with all the 
odours and sounds of humanity, and the farm is 
always easily recognized by ear and nose. Suppose 
a blind woman finds herself unexpectedly at one or 
other of these points: how is she to know where she 
is? Is this not precisely the question which puzzles 
those who can see? If she knows she is overlooked, 
or fears to be, or if she does not want to appear 
puzzled, she will pretend to be slowly walking 
about, she will follow the path she is in till it ends, 
that is to say until she finds another path or another 
corner of the garden; if it be a centre or surround- 
ing path she will retrace her steps and come back 
again. But, as she goes, she will walk in a gentle 
zigzag, so as to ascertain the width of the path 
and what its borders are composed of, paying the 
greatest attention the while. First, where is the 
sound of the fountain? Behind her—as she goes 
on, she finds shade and can therefore conclude 
that she is in the middle path, leading from the 
east side of the fountain. As there is no wind she 


cannot go by the sound of the branches—but it 
62 


FINDING ONE’S WAY 


might also be the northern path, which at this 
time in the day is also in shadow; she must risk 
a few more steps, the ground is soft and open, the 
blind woman feels no shelter; it must be the north 
path. .. A cart passes along the road. . . The ques- 
tion is settled with no more doubt; she follows the 
path to the end, expecting to reach the low western 
wall, and as her foot encounters the flower-bed she 
is quite reassured: she turns to the left, towards the 
farm-yard, which she reaches after passing the 
clump of rose trees which she knew would be 
there, on her left, and which finally convinced her 
that she was in the west path. As she grows more 
sure of her locality, her step becomes quicker and 
firmer. 

So we see that if a blind person is to walk un- 
hesitatingly about gardens, town or country, he 
must constantly encounter objects which may serve 
him as landmarks. Thus, a narrow path, of unequal 
surface, more or less well-rolled, with here and 
there an excrescence of gravel or a soft patch, and 
an occasional protruding root, is very helpful in 
walking alone. The obliging person who wishes to 
start a blind person on the right way never fails to 
lead him well into the middle of the road, however 
wide, and then to say, ‘‘ You are quite in the mid- 
dle, there is nothing in your way, you can go for- 
ward quite safely, you have only to walk straight 
before you. . .” But to walk straight in the middle 
of a wide road, path, pavement or avenue is pre- 
cisely the great difficulty. Thus the blind man when 
left alone and free to proceed as he prefers, if ac- 
customed to guide himself, will immediately turn 
to one side, the side he knows best and which has 
_ the fewer obstacles, and especially the most land- 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


marks—stepping-stones we might almost call them 
—he would even rather meet at times with ob- 
stacles which he can overcome and use as indica- 
tions; for instance, he will prefer the side of the 
road which is lined with houses to that which only 
consists of open gardens and fields, offering no clue 
by hearing, smell or touch. Supposing it possible— 
which it is not—to keep an absolutely straight 
course without eyesight or landmarks, or turning 
however slightly aside, to find himself in a wrong 
direction, or if after some hundred yards the blind 
man suddenly wishes to know exactly where abouts 
he is, and some check, interruption or false step 
has made him lose count of the time elapsed since 
he started, he will have to cross to one of the sides 
of the road and get in touch with his landmarks 
again. But unless he has thoroughly mastered all 
these landmarks, or they are very numerous, he 
will find them much more difficult to discover than 
when he passed them unexpectedly one by one. It 
is therefore easy to understand why large empty 
spaces of even ground are very unfavourable to 
finding one’s way by hearing and touch. 

If the ground is covered with snow, this topo- 
graphic and auditive monotony is very confusing 
to the blind. Changing noises, rain, high wind, etc., 
prevent the usual sounds being heard, such as 
echoes and those particular noises which, as I have 
said elsewhere,* are valuable clues; very bewilder- 
ing also are loud carriage-trafiic, galloping, cavalry 
bells and drums; their vibration fills the ear and 
prevents the blind from seeing, or feeling their 
way. It is only under such conditions that the hand 
ought to be used to find the whereabouts, by touch- 


* “Tes Aveugles par un Aveugle,” Paris, Hachette. 
64 


FINDING ONE’S WAY 


ing a tree, plantain, chestnut or privet, or a familiar 
wall covered with glyceria or ivy. The resonance of 
footsteps varies according to whether we walk on 
an open path or along a wall, and especially if trees 
form an arch over our heads. If a door of sufficient 
dimensions in a wall be suddenly opened, it is easy 
to hear very distinctly. Then there is the realiza- 
tion of so much space covered; if a blind man knows 
a certain door is to be found in a certain spot, at 
such and such a distance from where he started, 
he will not make a mistake: even if there be a 
slight inequality in front, or a projecting step, he 
will go in without hesitation. 

We see then that the blind can freely move 
about on familiar ground: rooms, houses, gardens. 
Ido not assert that all can do so with ease, but 
I have shown how it is possible. It is not their blind- 
ness, but some other obstacle peculiar to themselves 
which prevents those who do not. 


65 5 


_ ‘THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


@, II. Everyday Life 


HE following description is taken from the 

address on the Prize for Virtue, given by 

Edouard Pailleron, November 20, 1884. 
‘‘She* took care of her helpless mother and her 
hemiphlegic stepfather at the same time, going 
constantly from one bed to the other. The mother 
is dead and only one patient remains, but Léonore 
nurses him with unremitting care. How handy she 
is! Yet she herself is blind and in delicate health! 
She idealizes her task, and invests it with a kind 
of dim poetry which is in herself. She covers the 
chimney-piece with flowers to cheer the sick man’s 
eye, and the doctor often finds the patient’s pillow 
strewn with rose-leaves!” 

Yes, the blind sick-nurse is a possibility and ;a 
reality! She is not the ordinary, mercenary servant, 
produced by our unnatural social conditions, but 
the member which each self-sufficing family ought 
to possess. The elder sister, or unmarried aunt, 
who lives at home to play the gentle, loving part 
of benefactress to her relations, who takes care of 


* Léonore Papin, Chateau-d’Orleron (Charente-Inférieure): ‘‘ Blind from 
childhood. When her father died, and she was twenty years old, she was 
placed in a home. Her mother was left penniless, and re-married in 1848. 
During the war of 1870 L. Papin was sent back to her parents, and refused 
to leave them again, so that she might look after them in their old age and 
infirmity. Her mother, who had dropsy and liver complaint, has just died at 
the age of seventy-five. She continues to take devoted care of her stepfather, 
aged eighty-three. The old man is asthmatic, wheezy, half-deaf, semi-para- 
lysed, and subject to all sorts of inconvenient infirmities. Though blind, 
Léonore makes the most ideal sick-nurse. In spite of perpetual poverty and 
illness, the house is always astonishingly clean, and visitors are surprised at 
the polite and quiet welcome they receive. Léonore is often tired to death, 
but she never loses her balance or slackens in her thoughtfulness.” 


66 


EVERYDAY LIFE 


young brothers, nephews and aged parents, and is 
the centre of peace, happiness and security in the 
whole family, sometimes happens to be a blind wo- 
man. If a calming potion has to be prepared, or a 
sick person rubbed or dressed, her misfortune is 
no obstacle, and the afflicted one becomes a help 
instead of a burden. 

‘*FRor the last fortnight,” writes a blind woman 
whose father had just died after a long illness, ‘‘he 
called me up several times in the night, although I 
go to bed very late. Not only would he never take 
anything without consulting me, but it was usually 
I who had to warm his drink, and give him his 
tabloids or ether capsules. I used to put them into 
his mouth!” 

I know a considerable number of unmarried blind 
women who from taste or necessity live alone. 
They look after their little households entirely 
themselves; and there exist many more mothers 
of families than would be credited, who, becoming 
blind between the years of twenty and forty, are 
skilful, active and enterprising; they do all the work 
of their houses, cook, attend to their young children, 
sweep, dust, wash, mend, and even sometimes make 
clothes. From kitchen to laundry, using all the clues 
furnished by hearing, smell and touch, and drawing 
more or less instinctively the right inferences, the 
blind woman goes about her businesslike any other;* 
she can light a lamp or candle, kindle the fire and 
keep it up, without eyesight. Nothing is easier than 
to strike a match; the prepared side of the box 


can be recognized in an instant. The smell of sul- 


* Because a very short-sighted person makes a slovenly cook, this is not 
necessarily the case with the blind. Indeed, in the former instance, the defective 
eyes are still depended upon, whereas in the latter case the blind woman 
' uses her fingers as tests, and fingers discover many things which escape 
weak eyes. 

67 5a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


phur, the noise of the flame and the heat indicate 
ignition. The match is then placed to the wick of 
lamp or candle, which, stiff when cold, grows limp 
and flexible directly it is alight; the blind person per- 
ceives this. A wood fire is not difficult to lay, light 
or keep up; with the tongs the pieces of charred 
wood canbe felt and collected andthe half-consumed 
embers dispersed; with the left hand the fresh log 
can be thrown on, or, if this is difficult, one end can 
be held in the hand while the other is guided by the 
tongs. A coal fire in a range or a stove can also be 
kept up without sight; it is true that it must be con- 
stantly touched, which necessitates frequent hand- 
washing, but it can be done. 

‘*Wecan dress our hair almost as easily as women 
who can see,” said a blind woman to me, ‘‘if any- 
one will take the pains to show us how to do it. To 
imitateacoiffure, it suffices usto passthe hand lightly 
over another person’s head and carefully to follow 
her movements as she dresses her hair. Then we ex- 
periment on ourselves, and follow the explanation 
given. Touch is a perfect guide to regularity, but 
not to gracefulness; and often when our hair is per- 
fectly neat we are told it is badly dressed, because 
we do not know how to give the negligent grace so 
much praised on the heads of women who can see. 
Wecan curl, wave, or puff out our hair with little 
combs, raise the back knot with the finger, etc., 
and we can also dress another person’s hair, but our 
tendency is always to produce a flat, straight effect, 
rough, flowing hair being unpleasant to our touch.” 

Blind women who have lost their sight late in 
life, and remember what good hair-dressing looked 
like, have better taste and more success. 

Objects generally considered very delicate, such 


EVERYDAY LIFE 


as watches, can be handled without seeing them. 
To tell the time it suffices to take a watch between 
the four first fingers of the right hand, raising the 
glass by the introduction of the thumb nail between 
the dial and the frame of the glass; the thumb is 
then laid flat on the hands to ascertain their posi- 
tion. Very many actions appear at first impossible to 
to the blind, but are in reality quite feasible by fre- 
quent, progressive and leisurely practice. 

Naturally the great drawback in most cases is 
slowness; the blind person leaves the place where 
he has just been working surrounded by various 
objects that he fears to forget; whereas those who 
can see make sure with one glance that they are 
leaving nothing behind them; the blind man is 
obliged to see with his hands, an equally accurate 
but much more lengthy process. 

In some schools for the blind they make a point 
of training young girls to domestic work, such as 
peeling vegetables, choosing them in the kitchen 
garden by feeling their leaves, laying a table, wash- 
ing crockery, simple mending of clothes, sewing on 
buttons, washing, sorting and hanging out linen to 
dry, and recognizing its quality, texture, hem, etc., 
by certain signs perceptible to the touch. 

It is thought, and rightly, that a blind girl thus 
trained can be less of a burden to her family if she 
is to live definitely, or even temporarily, at home. 
But it is at the Blind School at Janesville (U.S.A.) 
that this domestic training has been carried to the 
greatest perfection. There they have a regular 
cookery and housework class. The pupils are accus- 
tomed, when quite children, to use cooking utensils 
_ as playthings, and then are gradually taught to light 
fires and to use the kitchen range, beginning with 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


simple dishes and going on to more elaborate ones.* 
These require very careful judgement, for instance, 
separating the whites from the yolks of eggs, and 
weighing and measuring quantities. All the dishes 
prepared in the class are served in the refectory, 
where the skill of each pupil can be tested and 
appraised. The aim of the Janesville School is not, 
of course, to train cooks for domestic service. It is 
only intended that these blind girls should be able 
to be of use in their homes by practical everyday 
cookery; the school totally denies any attempt at 
turning out professional cooks, which, of course, 
would be absurd. 

Whether or no they have been trained in schools, 
whether their aptitudes be developed systematically 
or revealed by necessity or the wish to be of use, 
the fact remains that there are, in Europe and in 
America, blind women who have been able to take 
an active part in family life. 

In concluding these concrete examples, I venture 
to append the following description actually written 
by a blind American woman:f 

‘*T was eighteen years when I[ lost my sight, and 
my agony, when I realized my irreparable affliction, 
cannot be described. I wasa poor girl with no spot 
on earth that I could call home; and in the bitter- 
ness of my heart I cried out, ‘All is lost!’ But I will 
not dwell any longer on that part of my life when 


* Our completely blind girls have succeeded in turning out the following 
dishes alone, from the choice, weighing out and preparing of the ingredients, 
to the dishing up: milk toast, bread and milk, biscuits, cream crackers, dry 
and buttered toast, lemon cake, fruit cake, dry tea biscuits, cream shapes, 
roast beef, beefsteak, roast fowl, fried ham, hashed meat, rissoles, cauli- 
flower and potato salads, boiled, baked, fried and mashed potatoes, tomatoes, 
eabbages, carrots, turnips, cod-fish, apple, jelly, grape jam, preserved 
quinces, lemons, peaches, pineapples and tomatoes; pickles, jams, sauces, 
etc.—Extract from ‘‘The Boston Mentor.” 

+ Elizabeth Putnam, Extract from ‘‘The Boston Mentor.” 


70 


EVERYDAY LIFE 


I feared to lose my reason. Two years later, at the 
instigation of friends, and wishing to find shelter for 
five years, I entered the Boston Institute. One 
evening as I went through the class-room I over- 
heard two of my companions deploring the dis- 
couragement which I had allowed to paralyse all 
my faculties. [ went back into my room resolved 
to overcome myself. I had no talent for music, but 
I was very strong at figures. Setting myself reso- 
lutely to work, I soon discovered that behind the 
clouds the sun can still shine. After my five years 
of study I left the Institute, carrying with me the 
esteem and affection of my companionsand teachers. 
I passed my first winter with my sister in Canada, 
and in the spring I paid a short visit to another 
sister in Boston. She fell ill and I nursed her for a 
year. There I made the acquaintance of a young 
carpenter, who married me two years later, in spite 
of the forebodings and opposition of his friends. I 
began immediately to keep house, only partially 
assisted by my husband. I soon learnt to cook any 
kind of meat or fish; if I had to roast, I used to test 
the heat of the roasting oven, and decide the length 
of time required by the size and quality of the 
meat. When [ had to fry, I would thrust in the fork 
to see if the meat or fish were done, and in the case 
of beef-steak a touch of the finger was enough. At 
first I found pastries and creams very difficult, but 
by putting my hand in the oven I soon learnt when 
it was hot enough, and I used just lightly to brush 
my finger over the cream to see if it were ready. 
I failed many times, but my husband always urged 
me to ‘try again.’ I took his advice, and at last grew 
quite a skilful cook. It cost me many tears, but 


‘there is no victory without effort.’ 
71 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


‘*Three years later a little son came to brighten 
our home, and the gossip began again, ‘What will 
she doP She certainly can’t look after a child,’ etc. 
But baby flourished, and seemed as strong and 
happy as other children, despite paternal anxiety. 
‘My husband confessed to me that when he went 
away to his work in the morning for the whole day 
he felt worried and anxious. Six years later God 
sent us another boy; but this time all fear was over, 
and I could cut out and make all my children’s 
clothes, cook and take care of the house, and I had 
the satisfaction of hearing people say that the blind 
woman’s children were better turned out than any 
others in the school. My husband gave up carpen- 
tering and took a grocer’s shop. It was in a very 
busy street, and people were constantly coming in 
for eatables. We then decided to sell cakes and 
pastry made by me. Not only excursionists stopped 
for a meal, but neighbours would buy things for 
their table, so that I had to take a help, though I 
still did the cooking myself. Our shop became a 
success, but after a few years my husband’s weak 
health obliged him to give up work, and though 
he had committed the folly of marrying a poor blind 
girl, we had saved enough to retire on. Six years 
passed, and one morning when my husband was 
riding with my sons, he was thrown, and picked up 
dead. Happily I had still my children. I live with 
my eldest son, now a widower, and take care of 
his house.” 


72 


APPEARANCE AND DISPOSITION 


BOOK III. The Blind Woman Herself 


@, I. Appearance, Tastes and Disposition 

tf KNOW of nothing more touching and ex- 
i pressive than those calm faces,” saysde Vogiié, 
speaking of the blind. ‘‘ With us, all the light 

of the human physiognomy is concentrated in the 
eyes, in them it is diffused over all the other fea- 
tures; each muscle expresses attention, but with 
something of infinite gentleness and purity. As you 
watch them, their faces convey the same impression 
of rest which you receive on entering a dark room 
after a long walk through the streets on a hot sum- 
mer’s day.” * A blind girl’s face may be quite agree- 
able without even possessing beauty. Her manners 
and attitude may be quite easy, unconstrained and 
graceful. I say they ‘‘may be,” but I do not mean 
in the least to assert that they always are: far from 
it; but this is supposed never to be possible. Is it not 
true that to most people the idea of a blind woman 
calls up a poor disfigured girl, groping along with 
outstretched hands, her head thrown back for fear 
of hitting it against something, never knowing where 
she is, unable to get from one place to another with- 
out some kindly arm to guide her, always passive 
(at any rate physically), and incapable of any initia- 
tive or effort in life? This, of course, is why a cele- 
brated contemporary preacher says of the blind 
that they are ‘‘reduced to an exceptionally painful 
and humiliating position.” The orator was thinking 


*Vogiié, ‘‘ A Travers l’Exposition.” 
73 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


of the blind beggar, determined to shew his afflic- 
tion under its most lamentable aspect; he had never 
seen what is quite common, an active and handy 
blind woman, moving about easily, helping her 
parents, sharing the household work, useful and 
agreeable in the home circle. Such women exist, 
and it is of them that I wish to speak here. 
Gesture and facial mobility, which are in so many 
people the silent but important accompaniment of 
speech, completely escape the blind; hence they 
themselves are excessively and almost painfully 
quiet. The blind face expresses and reveals less 
than that of an ordinary woman, it is often quite 
impassible. It is said that blind girls blush less than 
others, because blushing is attributed to the effect 
of being looked at; still, little blind girls often blush 
when they fancy themselves watched, or when they 
are moved by some person’s voice or words. There 
may remain more to be discovered on this point, 
but the immobility of attitude is indisputable. Blind 
women have little inclination to make gestures from 
self-consciousness, they are more inclined to make 
sounds, such as affected coughs, either to keep 
themselves in countenance or to attract attention. 
Does paucity of gesture oblige blind women to talk 
with special precision and clearness? This would 
seem to be so, according to a curious theory of M. 
Fouillée, who declares that certain savages, whose 
language is very primitive, express so much of their 
meaning by gesture that when they wish to talk at 
night they are obliged to light torches to make them- 
selves understood. I do not think, however, that 
blindness sensibly increases precision in speech; in- 
deed some people reproach the blind with using 
certain painfully inappropriate expressions, such as 


APPEARANCE AND DISPOSIRION 


‘*seeing” or ‘‘looking,” which verbs are constantly 
in the mouths of most blind people. It would, of 
course, be more exact to say touching, examining, 
testing, encountering, searching. But that would 
often be impossible without circumlocution; and the 
customary word is shorter and more convenient. 
The blind woman uses it without necessarily ‘‘ pre- 
tending to be able to see,” and without considering 
that some of her hearers may be pained. 

This class of persons consider that amongst 
French writers only Bossuet and Voltaire can be 
convicted of flagrant misapplication of terms. Fur- 
thermore, it has been very truly said that languages 
are very conservative, and our speech retains many 
words which no longer have their original meaning. 
We calculate in francs, while we still speak of sous, 
livres, écus and louis. If we take the trouble to go 
into the question, we can quote many daily expres- 
sions where the verb ‘‘to see” is very loosely used. 
What, for instance, is the meaning of ‘‘You will 
see how well that woman sings,” or ‘‘ How beauti- 
ful that symphony is,” ‘‘See how good this wine is,” 
etc.P Or again, in repeating a remark, ‘‘ You can see 
how spiteful she was.” The fact is that the verbs 
‘*to see” and ‘‘to look,” unless we intend to speak 
pedantically, are employed as synonyms for tak- 
ing into consideration, ascertaining or understand- 
ing, and it is in this sense that they are used by the 
blind. It is quite certain that when a blind woman 
takes out her watch with the remark, ‘‘I am going 
to look at the time,” or ‘‘I will just see the time,” 
she is aware that her eyes take no part in her action, 
but it is quicker than saying, ‘‘I am going to find 
out the time” or ‘‘examine my watch”; she could 
say ‘‘touch the time,” which would, of course, be 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


more exact, but it does not occur to her, so instinc- 
tive is the habit of using hearing and touch where 
others use sight. The medium of perception and 
the intermediary agent between the brain and the 
object have changed; but she uses habitual expres- 
sions, and says with the rest of the world, ‘‘I am 
going to see the time,” ‘‘I am going to look over 
that sonata again,” instead of ‘‘I am going to prac- 
tise it, and go over it again.” ‘‘I shall go and see 
so-and-so.” ‘‘It’s a long time since I saw Mme 
X——.” In all cases where the eye is only used as 
an agent of information, and not as a medium of 
esthetic.impressions, if another sense conveys the 
required information, the desired end is accom- 
plished, and the knowledge acquired. 

It is but too true, as I have repeatedly remarked, 
that one range of impressions and esthetic plea- 
_ sures must remain a dead letter to the blind. Beauty 
of line, feature or colour is unknown to the human 
being who has never had eyesight, but it can, on 
the contrary, exist for the man who kept the use 
of his eyes late enough in life to enjoy plastic 
beauty and who retains, besides his vivid recol- 
lection, a sense of touch delicate enough to appre- 
ciate purity of form. The celebrated animal sculp- 
tor, Vidal, felt real pleasure in touching beautiful 
shapes, his fingers were exceedingly sensitive and 
no smallest details in relief or indentation escaped 
him. This delicacy and subtlety of touch is known 
to be also the privilege of sculptors who can see, 
but whose touch is refined by modelling. Ghiberti 
says, in speaking of an antique statue, ‘‘ Words 
cannot express her perfections. She has lines of 
suave beauty which the eye alone cannot grasp; 
the hand is required to appreciate them.” And be- 


APPEARANCE AND DISPOSITION 


yond this peculiar pleasure in sensation the brain 
receives the impression which the hand conveys; 
failing eyesight, the brain reconstitutes and sees the 
‘fensemble” of line and shape, which the fingers 
can only trace in fragmentary succession. Touch is 
essentially analytic; sight alone is synthetic, and 
the synthetic apprehension of details discovered by 
the touch, the interior vision of an assemblage of 
lines and shapes which the hand could only ascer- 
tain by degrees, can only be produced, to my be- 
lief, in a brain which has once had the idea of a 
plastic whole conveyed to it by the eye. In this 
case, as in others, the finger is only an interme- 
diary instrument, the brain is the real seat of per- 
ception. * 

Writers who introduce blind characters generally 
describe them as feeling the faces of people they 
love so as to find out what they look like; this 
could only be true of a person who had once been 
able to see, and that for long enough to regret not 
knowing the shape of the face; Vidal, the sculptor, 
used to say in his somewhat coarse studio jargon: 
‘*T can’t see, I must feel.” But those blind from 
birth or childhood, or who have kept their sight 
till the age of eight or ten, lose the wish to feel the 
faces of people they love after a few years of blind- 
ness. The real cry of the blind is always, ‘‘Speak 
to me that I may see you.” ... This is what the 
blind love and wish for; in ordinary intercoursethey 
are, so to speak, helpless in the presence of silence. 
As a rule blind girls are not much attracted by 
form, they have an excessive admiration for regu- 
larity. In arranging objects, they will aim at sym- 


* This question has been studied and exhausted by M. J. L. Soret, ‘‘Sur 
le rdle du sens du toucher dans la perception du Beau, particulitrement chez 
les aveugles.”—‘‘ Archives of Physical and Natural Science,” Oct. 15, 1885. 

77 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


metry, harmony of dimension and order, or else 
their ideas of beauty will be based on what they 
have heard described as beautiful. A blind girl will 
exclaim, ‘‘ What a beautiful piece of lace!” because 
she knows it is considered so, and others which 
resemble it in design will be also described by her 
as beautiful. As for dress and the cut of clothes she 
prefers those which fit closely; she does not care 
for anything flowing or frilled, as not being neat 
and symmetrical. She likes plenty of elaborate 
trimming, curled and crimped hair, and is rather 
given to an exaggerated style of dress. She will 
wear any amount of fringe, lace or fur, and, of 
course, all sense of line and colour escapes her. 
Texture of materials is of paramout importance; 
she likes velvets and satins, the rustle of silk 
delights her, a taste she shares with her seeing 
sisters; the shopmen at,the Bon Marché when they 
are selling silk always expatiate on its rustling ca- 
pacity. Blind women are very anxious to ‘‘look 
like other people,” and when they take great pains 
with their dress, it is principally that they may 
appear like other women. The idea that she is 
looked upon as a being apart is one of the most 
painful reflections to a blind woman, particularly 
while young. I have often been told of a young, 
clever blind girl, who, being very well off, wished 
to ‘‘do like the rest of the world.” Her parents 
found her a husband, and she lives in a provincial 
town where she is to be seen sitting out of doors 
amongst her women friends, a pretty piece of fancy 
work in her hands, listening to the band; her child- 
ren and their nurseare close by, she feels ‘‘like other 
people,” and is quite happy. Social conditions are 
the most trying to blind women; we have seen that 


APPEARANCE AND DISPOSITION 


they can enjoy nature, and be resourceful in means 
of getting about. But blindness is awkward in going 
to strange places and making a first appearance; 
hence the blind woman clings to her home life and 
is happiest indoors, where she can move about in 
comfort. She likes to be always busy, she crochets 
while talking to keep herself in countenance, and, as 
we have seen, does not make many gestures. Her 
preference for home life does not prevent her, how- 
ever, from enjoying a walk, when some one takes 
her out with whom she feels at ease. It often hap- 
pens, too, that she likes walking for walking’s sake, 
and for the sense of well-being induced by activity. 
She appreciates sweet-scented flowers, which she 
will grow on her window-ssill within reach of her 
hands, where she can touch them and follow the 
development of the plant and its new leaves; she 
knows when a flower is about to open, and when 
its perfume will fill the garden, the house or, in 
some cases, the single garret; she tends her plants, 
waters them, and takes them in when the weather 
turns cold. Blind women are also devoted to birds; 
they like their little twittering, and jealously value 
the privilege of feeding and attending to them. It 
is needless to say that cats and dogs, so dear to all 
lonely persons, are doubly so to the blind, who 
take the greatest pleasure in petting them, and be- 
ing caressed in return. Another companion in lone- 
liness and a great magician in the home, with a 
never-failing language for the blind, is the fire. ‘‘A 
fire has a moral fascination beyond its material 
qualities; it attracts human thoughts, fascinates 
man by its vitality, and plunges him into a world 
of dreams. Now sad, now gay, a fire lights up the 
vanished past and the ghosts which peopled it; it 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


shows the future and then woos us to rest.” * The 
ear catches the living animation of a fire; the con- 
stant flame produces cheerful, crisp, crackling 
sounds; the wood sparkles with little whistling, 
moaning noises; suddenly the embers are displaced 
and fall in with a crash. Our thoughts wander far 
afield, a crowd of memories waken in our mind. 
Yes, the blind woman enjoys more of the fire than 
its grateful warmth; if she have ever so little ima- 
gination and intelligence, she will have favourites, 
such as the wood fire, which can talk to her. 
Since I have adopted the plan of quoting so 
largely and hope by this means to render my book 
especially interesting, I will give some extracts 
from Christmas-holiday letters written by a blind 
Swiss girl. They show what home life is to her. 


‘‘Chamosson, December, 1895. 

‘*T haven’t much to tell you, most days are alike; 
but you know I can enjoy everything, and time 
passes so quickly that I shall wake up at the end of 
these holidays like after a beautiful dream which 
ends too soon. I always specially delight in these 
winter holidays; they take in the real home life. 
This is the time for long, intimate talks; in summer 
every one isin a hurry to get out of doors. A great 
deal of snow has fallen; all outside noises are 
muffled; I go out very little but enjoy staying in- 
doors; the house is so cosy and the fireside so at- 
tractive. I feel so comfortable that I don’t even 
quarrel with the winter weather, and we generally 
get some sun every day. It seems warmer here, 
now I know what the fogs of Lyons are. You ask 
how I fill up my time? Be content to know that I 


* Biart, ‘‘La Baie de Santécornapan.” 
0 


APPEARANCE AND DISPOSITION 


am never idle, or without my long strip of pink 
work that I sew on every day. .. . Besides if I had 
nothing whatever to do, Agnes and Edmond would 
make it their business to occupy my ‘far niente’; 
I hear them run downstairs, and along the corri- 
dor, as they come to take possession of me. I have 
to dance and play hide-and-seek. Behold us whirl- 
ing round and round till we are giddy; the house is 
almost shaken, and they still cry, ‘Again!’ Grand- 
mamma laughs, grandpapa is often drawn into the 
game. Then we play at something else; we look at 
pictures and Tante Héléne has to show them. I am 
not joking; with heads bent over the magic book, 
which is always the same and always new, we are 
as absorbed a trio as we were lately riotous. My 
explanations, as you may imagine, take the form 
of questions: ‘‘‘ Well, what is on this pageP Can 
you describe itP’ Agnes hurries to begin, proud of 
her knowledge; Edmond echoes her, and I fill up 
the gaps in the story.” 


Is not this picture charming? The young blind 
aunt, happy in making others so, and becoming her 
nephew’s and niece’s playmate! But we wonder if, 
as she kisses the little heads, she ever murmurs to 
herself, very, very low: ‘‘If I were their mother!” 
Perhaps, but she does not linger over this regret, 
for she is sensible above all things, as we shall see 
by what she writes, in another phase of her life, to 
a blind friend of twenty who has confided in her: 

‘Really, my dear Caroline, you are a perfect 
fool (une grande sotte). The word is not polite, but 
it is intensely appropriate. Sitting moping, a nice 
occupation! I should like to be near you, not to pity 
_ you, but to give you a good shaking. How often 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


have I asked you why you can only think of hap- 
piness as consisting in what you lack? There are 
thousands of things which I know are charming and 
delightful, but it doesn’t occur to me to grieve be- 
cause I can’t have them. Enjoy what you have and 
take an interest in little everyday amusements. 
You say you envy me my days which pass so 
quickly and peacefully. But do you know, you 
unruly member (difficile citadine), how monoto- 
nous winter is in the country? A little hypochon- 
driasis would soon make me feel as if these hurry- 
_ ing hours were endless. Now, would you like to 
know what my principal amusement was yester- 
day? Listening to the village children sleigh-riding 
down the sloping orchard. Such excitement! Such 
headlong rushing and racing! Well, I enjoyed hear- 
ing them amusing themselves in the way I used to 
myself. I pictured myself a child again, sharing my 
brother’s little sledge; my hands red, my hair fly- 
ing, triumphantly courageous, as I flew like an 
arrow over the dazzling snow. The little incident 
which pleased me would have saddened you. You 
would have remembered that your eyes used to be 
open to the light as the children’s are now. . . . Oh, 
I don’t mean to tell you that I have never looked 
upon my blindness as a great affliction. . . . Having 
once known the boon of eyesight, I can realize all 
[have lost; but I tell myself that if I had kept that 
blessing, perhaps many others even more precious 
would never have been mine.” 

Alas! all blind girls are not so wise and philoso- 
phical, and many regret that they are not ‘‘like the 
rest of the world.” They murmur sadly as they 
caress their nephews, ‘‘ If I were only their mother!” 


82 


THE LIFE OF THE AFFECTIONS 


G, Il. The Life of the Affections 
| CANNOT recall what thinker it was who 


said, ‘‘Sooner or later, the soul becomes all in 

all to us.” The blind soon reach this stage; they 
grow to love the spiritual side of their friends when 
their affliction has of necessity removed them from 
a certain sphere of action and from irksome preoc- 
cupations, such as dress, purely social ties, and that 
light reading which often absorbs the best part of 
our time and attention and wastes a large amount 
of our lives. Friendship means a great deal to a blind 
woman; she is capable of becoming profoundly at- 
tached to a friend and is happy in her devotion. 
The exchange of ideas and sentiments between the 
two is a joy to both. Blind women, above all others, 
love intimate talks; they are slow in giving their 
affection, but they can become very deeply attached. 
If they are not indifferent to where they live, and 
can take an interest in surrounding objects, it may 
well be imagined that human beings mean a great 
deal more to them, and the life of the affections is 
almost the whole of their existence. A blind girl 
can feel herself powerfully attracted; why should 
we hesitate to say that she can love? Why should 
we fear to see the word love in these pages? Does 
not love come from God, with its special place 


i 


and mission in the divine plan? Does not God bless  \ 


human love, when man receives it with sanctifying 
respect and self-control, recognizing that it is but 
an episode in life and not the whole? But the mo- 


ment which teaches man what love is, implants in 
83 6a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


him the desire of the Infinite. The yearning for the 
Infinite, which exists in every human soul and can 
only be satisfied by God, begins even in childhood. 
Youth is vitally and intensely influenced by it. The 
Infinite is sought in everything, and we are loth to 
recognize on all sides a little of the true and the 
beautiful with an admixture of evil; we long for each 
of our fellow-creatures to be complete with an un- 
mixed array of qualities. Marvellous is the phase 
of unity we pass through, when we believe it pos- 
sible to finally and unerringly love, hate, attract 
and repel. Then, under maturer experience and 
analysis, we adopt violently one-sided opinions and 
usually only settle down, as life declines, into im- 
partial judgement of men and things viewed as a 
whole. But this outlook is acquired by much self- 
training, and isnolonger spontaneous and instinctive 
as were our early views. It is only after many 
heart-rending disappointments that we come to 
recognize almighty God as the only centre of Infi- 
nity and absolute truth. 

When we are young, it goes against us to divide 
our affections, we aspire to give ourselves to one 
only and for ever. ‘‘ Forever!” Solemn words which 
we say so gladly and lightly to a fellow-creature! 
We cannot bear the idea of ever so little of our 
affectionand daily life being shared indiscriminately. 
We fancy that love and devotion must be undivided, 
and are worth nothing when they are not concen- 


\...trated on one alone. A wonderful dispensation of 


Providence it is which inspires such energy and 
vigour in our affections just at the moment when 
strength and confidence are essential in forming the 
basis of family life! The blind girl reaches this point 
as well as her happier sisters; then little is needed 


THE LIFE OF THE AFFECTIONS 


to fan the flame of love; heart and head, imagina- 
tion and sentiment, all combine to set a halo round 
the beloved being, whom in many cases they hardly 
know. Stendhalhasingeniously defined and analysed 
what hecallsthissymbolical ‘‘ crystallization,” which 
he compares to the process undergone by ‘‘a twig 
of dead wood, kept in a grotto where the atmos- 
phere is laden with certain salts, until it becomes 
covered with sparkling crystals and looks like a 
diamond aigrette. Love is no more at its birth than 
the dead, black twig; imagination and lonely day- 
dreams transform it into a brilliant jewel, blazing 
with all the fires of heaven.” This is quite possible; 
but whether the aigrette be of crystals or diamonds, 
its beauty is the same, and it is all the dearer to its 
possessor for the imagination and affection she has 
lavished on it. Perhaps the blind girl’s twig is very 
small and black; but this matters little if the grotto 
where she keeps it be heavy withcrystalline vapour, 
only waiting for a centre on which to concentrate. 
It is then that the affliction of blindness is bit- 
terest. The blind girl, thrilling with the magnetic 
aspirations of her age, longing for reciprocal love 
and supreme surrender, is bitterly grieved and 
wounded at realizing the barriers with which her 
affliction surrounds her; she exaggerates her posi- 
tionand the ‘‘impossible” obstacles whichshe, unlike 
her happier girl friends, must overcome. Her reason 
sternly tells her that love is forbidden, while her 
heart whispers, ‘‘Oh, if he knew how I could love, 
and how happy I could make him. I would give him 
my whole life and heart, my very self!” Still the 
poor blind girl fancies that her affection is not quite 
worthless; she knows it to be disinterested, pro- 


found and lasting. She believes herself drawn to a 
85 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


union of souls, and knows that, spiritually, her love 
is unsurpassable, while the man often feelsthe dread- 
ful sacrifice he makes in taking a blind wife. She is 
only longing for abnegation. 

‘* There is an epoch in the life of man which must 
be faced—paternity. I feel, as you do, that now we 
must live for others, we must shed tears, feel un- 
known anxieties, watchings, sorrows and equally 
unknown joys; you feel, as I do, that life cannot be 
spent alone. It is a bitter grief for a woman to re- 
main barren. Her whole heart and being are filled 
with an immense sterile ardour, a huge, useless 
energy. In spite of herself, her arms stretch out 
after the child they were meant to enfold, her 
breasts long and yearn after the frail creature that 
should have drawn its life from them, and her lips 
unconsciously murmur, ‘My child, my son!’”* 

With the longing to give ourself to the beloved, 
comes the desire to be loved, and, so to speak, 
enwrapped in reciprocal devotion. This feeling is 
all the more intense in those who are a little with- 
drawn from the stress and tumult of daily life. 

‘*To be blind and beloved,” writes Victor Hugo, 
‘fis one of the most poignantly exquisite forms of 
happiness attainable on this earth, where all is in- 
complete. To have constantly by your side a wife, a 
daughter or a sister, a lovable being who is there 
because you both need her and are essential to her, 
to feel that you are indispensable to one who is a 
necessity to you, to be able to test the depth of her 
love by her constant presence—all this is the special 
joy of the blind man. He can say to himself, ‘She 
gives meall her time, which provesthat she has given 


me all her love. I see her thoughts instead of her 
* Henry ict he ‘*Lettres.” 


THE LIFE OF THE AFFECTIONS 


face, her fidelity stands out in my dark world, the 
rustle of her dress is the brushing of angels’ wings, 
I hear her come and go, in and out, I listen to her 
voice as she speaks and sings, and I remember that 
I am the goal to which her every action tends, I 
draw her with a power all my own, and all the 
stronger for my infirmity. [am in darkness, and by 
this very darkness I become the light towards which 
this angel gravitates. What happiness can equal 
this?’ The highest joy in life is to know ourself be- 
loved, loved for ourself, better still, in spite of our- 
self; this is the special joy of the blind man. In his 
affliction, all care of him is a caress. He wants 
nothing more, love takes the place of light. And 
what a love! entirely made up of goodness. There 
is no such thing as blindness where we have faith. 
Soul falteringly seeks soul, and they meet. The 
soul we meet and test is that of a woman. Her 
hand supports us, her mouth brushes our forehead, 
it is her breathing that we hear close by! To owe 
all to her, from her devotion to her pity, never to 
be forsaken by the gentleness which is our strength, 
to lean on this unbending reed, to be able to touch 
and embrace our earthly providence, what God- 
given bliss! The heart, like a celestial flower, 
blooms mysteriously in the darkness. Such shadows 
are more precious than the light. The angel soul is 
always near; if she goes away it is only to return, 
she fades like a dream to reappear as a reality. 
Warmth comes with her. Peace, joy and happiness 
shine out of the gloom. Every trifling action and 
each one of her little services take enormous im- 
portance in the blank around us. The most heavenly 
tones of a woman’s voice lull us, and are themedium 


of communication between us and a hidden world. 
87 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 
It is a caress of the soul. We see nothing, but feel 
ourselves beloved. It is a twilight Paradise.” 
Perhaps the wish to be loved is greater in men 
than in women, though they too feel it deeply. A 
blind woman who is an exquisite poet has expressed 
this with great charm: 


Je ne le vois pas, ton regard qui m’aime, 

Lorsque je le sens sur moi se poser. 

Qu’importe! un regret serait un blasphéme. 

Je ne le vois pas, ton regard qui m’aime, 
Mais j’ai ton baiser. 


Mes yeux sont fermés, mais qu’importe l’ombre! 

J’ai trop de rayons, et j’ai trop de jour 

Pour qu’il puisse faire en moi jamais sombre, 
Puisque j’ai l’amour !* 


Is the love of a blind girl often returned P Some- 
times, certainly; but not often. There are young 
men of a refined and rather dreamy temperament, 
who could easily become attached to a blind girl 
with charm, cleverness and grace ; she would have 
a strange veiled fascination for them. But what hap- 
pens oftenest is that the girl’s feeling quickly de- 
velops into love, while the man stops short at friend- 
ship. His sentiment will not be proof againsta glance 
from pretty eyes, and some flattering tribute to his 
vanity; while his friends and relations will all 
preach cold, practical reason to him, exaggerating 
the drawbacks of a blind wife and possible mother, 
impressing on him her inability to look after servants, 
etc. [tis aterrible blowforthe woman who isalready 
married to become blind, still, up to a certain point, 
the consequences can be mitigated by intelligence 
and good management, if the husband makes allow- 


*«*T cannot see your loving glance when it falls on me. What matters it? 
A regret would be blasphemy, I have your kiss. My eyes are closed, what 
matters the darkness? Too much light and sunshine are in my heart for me 
to grieve at shadows, for I have love.”—Bertha Galeron, ‘‘Qu’importe!” 


88 


THE LIFE OF THE AFFECTIONS 


ances; but to marry a blind woman is the greatest 
folly! This is what the young man hears on all sides, 
and one cannot wonder at it. The romance of the 
blind girl almost always ends sadly; a short struggle, 
a brief hesitation, a few promises of faithful remem- 
brance, and the lover fades mournfully into the dis- 
tance. Time passes, he soon meets with other attrac- 
tions and quickly forgets; nothing happens to cheer 
or rouse the blind girl, and she is left to her sweet 
but painful memories of the past. 

Blind women between sixteen and thirty can feel 
all the ardours of love; sometimes their feelings run 
away with them beyond the bounds of prudence ; 
great tact and sympathy are necessary in such cases, 
the more so that the sentiment is generally sincere 
and disinterested. Reader, if you have reached a 
later stage of life and experience, do not smile; give 
a glance, and go your way. Goon your way respect- 
fully, sympathetically, or at least compassionately ; 
you are in the presence of an immortal soul, willing 
to immolate herself at the feet of what she believes 
to be her ideal. If you feel it your duty to disabuse 
her, let it be tenderly done, for such illusions are not 
uprooted without the cruellest pangs. 


89 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


@, IV. Conclusion 


HOPE that my readers will not make the 
| re mistake of dismissing as trivial and 
commonplace those impressions which they 
may not have received themselves but which I 
claim for the blind. Is not nature richer as a source 
of emotions than man can be in observation and 
sensation? I have already observed that form and 
colour are fascinating enough to absorbourattention 
completely, and the man whose sight serves him 
does not always notice the impressions he receives 
through his other senses, whilst he is dazzled by 
what he can see. Blind women’s perceptions are 
always on the alert; they eagerly seek impressions 
of ear, touch and smell, keeping them jealously in 
their memory, and always associating them with 
their feeling of the moment. 

We read the following in the correspondence of 
a blind person: 

‘‘Do you remember our walk in*the woods that 
afternoon in autumn? The sun was shining, and the 
wind was full of the smell of pines, heather and dead 
leaves. The path was narrow and rough, and some- 
times we had to walk very close together. I remem- 
ber how the branches flew in our faces and made 
us laugh, and the magpies, who were disturbed by 
our approach, flew over our heads, telling all the 
woods of our arrival. I remember how we sat on 
the mossy ground, reading and talking, grave and 
gay by turns. I remember the wind in the tall fir 


trees, and the chestnuts we picked up under the 
90 | 


CONCLUSION 


big chestnut tree near the little stream, where we 
stayed so long listening to its limpid ripple. Yester- 
day I went over the same ground again, and stopped 
at all the same spots, the same sun was shining, the 
same warm wind was laden with the same sounds 
and scents. I recalled most vividly our walk, already 
so far in the past, all things spoke to me of you. ... 
But you were not there, so we cut short our walk 
and our stoppages, we did not prick our fingers, as 
you said we should, gathering horse chestnuts under 
the big tree by the clear little stream.” 

The most poetic part of memory is the min- 
gling of mental emotion with impressions of the 
senses. Memory, like love, transforms all things, 
and the event most trifling in itself becomes pre- 
cious when it grows into a memory. 

But ever and anon of grief subdued 

There comes a token like a scorpion’s sting, 
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued; 
And slight withal may be the things which bring 
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling 
Aside for ever, it may be a sound— 

A tone of music, summer’s eve, or spring, 


A flower, the wind, the ocean, which shall wound, 
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly 


bound. 
—Byron’s ‘‘ Childe Harold.” 


“In the great crises of life our minds cling closely 
to the places where we went through great joys 
or sorrows. Charles minutely examined the box 
bordersof the little garden, the faded, falling leaves, 
the gnarled fruit-trees, the breaches in the walls; 
picturesque details which were to remain graven 
in his memory, eternally associated with these su- 
preme moments by the special mnemonics of pas- 


_ sion.”’* 
* Balzac, ‘‘ Eugénie Grandet.’ 
91 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Ruskin says: ‘‘Let the eye but rest on a rough 
piece of branch of curious form during a con- 
versation with a friend—rest however uncon- 
sciously, and though the conversation be forgotten, 
though every circumstance connected with it be as 
utterly lost to the memory as though it had not 
been, yet the eye will, through the whole life after, 
take a certain pleasure in such boughs which it had 
not before, a pleasure so slight, a trace of feeling 
so delicate as to leave us utterly unconscious of its 
peculiar power, but undestroyable by any reason- 
ing, a part, thenceforward of our constitution.” * 

These mnemonics of recollection apply to sounds 
often insignificant in themselves: ‘‘The most trifling 
episodes of this last evening seemed strangely im- 
portant; when the time for the farewell drew near 
everything was magnified and exaggerated as before 
the approach of death. In the resonant darkness 
the barking of a dog on a distant farm made them 
shiver with gloomy foreboding.” + 

No one could read Dostoievsky’s ‘‘Crime et 
Chatiment” without being struck by the psycholo- 
gical importance of old Alena’s tinkling cracked 
bell, as Raskelnikoff rings it in the empty room 
after the murder. ‘‘Instead of answering, Ras- 
kelnikoff got up, passed into the hall and pulled 
the bell-rope. It gave out the same cracked, tink- 
ling sound! He rang a second and a third time, 
bending down his ear and recalling the past. His 
terrible sensations as he stood on the old woman’s 
doorstep a few days ago, returned with increasing 
clearness and intensity; each peal of the bell sent 
a thrill of strange pleasure through him.” 


* **Modern Painters,” II, iv, 37. 
+ Pierre Loti, ‘‘Ramuntcho.” Chateaubriand was reminded of home and 
fatherland by a dog who barked at night in the country. 
92 


CONCLUSION 


So slight a thing as the feeble sound of a little 
cracked bell, perfectly insignificant and unnotice- 
able in itself, can strike awe into one who has 
heard it at a decisive, epoch-making moment of 
his existence. Ever after, that little sound, or any 
similar one, will rivet his attention and recall the 
terrible crisis. Such impressions are purely subjec- 
tive as are those we receive when we hear one par- 
ticular song or hymn: it may be ugly and inartistic, 
yet we cannot listen without remembering some 
one who at a given moment interested us, and has 
for ever associated himself with the song. The 
hymn will ever after recall the sweetest, most 
peaceful hour of our existence; the ballad, how- 
ever feeble, will always carry us back to a certain 
year of our childhood, and call up the loved one 
who sang it. 

‘*He grew young again in the midst of us, and 
would ask us for old, old airs and songs that we 
would sing to him in chorus: 

Il était un petit navire 
Qui n’avait ja-ja-jamais navigué. 

‘*Then his old face would light up as distant 
images filled his mind; he kept time with his white 
head and smiled to himself. What was he thinking 
of? Of his whole past life, bereavements, the dead 
ashes of passion, vanished griefs which the kind 
hand of time has hidden in the veil of oblivion; 
vague figures, visible only to his eyes, arose and 
moved before him.” * 

In the same way any one special scent or fla- 
vour, though perfectly ordinary in itself, becomes 
full of meaning if it recalls a person or thing asso- 


ciated with one particular period. ‘‘If we admit 
* Edouard Rod, ‘‘ o Sens de la Vie,” 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


that sight is the sense of knowledge and hearing 
that of reason, we might call the sense of smell 
memory, since it reminds us more vividly than 
any other of special events and circumstances 
however remote.” * 

Suppose that I am working alone by a wood fire, 
why, before long, do I feel myself irresistibly car- 
ried back to the days of my childhood? Because 
the log which is burning just now happens to give 
out a particular odour. It is not specially pleasant, 
but I remember smelling it long ago and far away, 
when we children used to nestle down on the floor, 
in the room where all the family assembled after 
meals, round my grandmother’s chimney corner, 
and my heart aches at the memory of the vanished 
past. Another time memory will awaken at the 
smell of grass, flowers, new-mown hay, or at the 
taste of fruit, for flavour, even more than scent, 
evokes past associations. 

‘*As we passed the flowering bindweed my mo- 
ther said to me, ‘Smell those flowers and don’t for- 
get that they smell of sweet honey.’ This is my first 
recollection of smell; and by an association of me- 
mory and sensation, which each of us has felt but 
cannot explain, I never smell bindweed without 
seeing that spot in the Spanish mountains and the 
wayside path where I picked it for the first time.” f 

Even when we have never very distinctly ex- 
perienced any of these impressions of hearing, smell 
or touch, we realize their mysterious power and 
we understand and love those who can express 
them in words. ‘‘As we were crossing the Rhine, 
I asked the ferryman in mid-stream to let the 


* Schopenhauer, ‘‘The World as Will Power,” etc. 
+ George Sand, ‘‘ Histoire de ma Vie.” 


94 


CONCLUSION 


ferry boat drift with the current. The old man 
raised his oars and the majestic river carried us 
along. I looked around me, I listened, I called up 
memory; suddenly I felt a vague sense of pain; I 
looked up at the sky, but even the heavens were 
not calm; the stars seemed to pierce the atmo- 
sphere, and the ether throbbed and palpitated. 
I leaned over the water; its dark, cold depths 
reflected trembling, scintillating stars; all around 
me seemed vibrating with life and I grew more 
and more troubled. I leaned my elbow on the side 
of the boat; the wind murmured at my ear, the 
muffled ripple of the water under the rudder irri- 
tated my nerves, the fresh exhalations from the 
water failed to calm me; a nightingale sang on the 
bank and its song seemed to pour some delicious 
poison through my veins.” * 

Has it ever been noticed that some of our most 
celebrated poems are full of purely auditive impres- 
sions to which some memory is attached? ‘‘ Dost 
thou recall that night when we floated silently over 
the waters? Nothing broke the stillness, but the 
rhythmic cadence of oars upon the lake’s sonorous 
breast... . The moaning wind, the whispering 
reed, the subtle perfumes of the scented air, all 
that we hear, see and breathe, murmured, ‘They 
have loved.’” + 

Mystical writers, following the example of Holy 
Scripture, constantly use the metaphor of per- 
fumes in referring to persons and things: ‘‘The 
memory of Josias is like the composition of a sweet 
smell made by the art of a perfumer.” { ‘‘Give ye 
a sweet odour as frankincense.”§ ‘‘Draw me, we 


* Tourgueniéff, ‘‘ Assia.” + Lamartine, ‘‘ Le Lac.” 
{ Ecclus xlix. §Ecclus xxxix, 


95 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


will run after the odour of thy ointments.”* Per- 
fumes had a privileged place in the ancient liturgy. 
‘*The Lord said to Moses: Thou shalt make an 
altar to burn incense, of Setim-wood... . And 
Aaron shall burn sweet-smelling incense upon it 
in the morning. When he shall dress the lamp he 
shall burn it. And when he shall place them in the 
evening, he shall burn an everlasting incense be- 
fore the Lord throughout your generation... .”+ 
We read in the Gospel, ‘‘Mary therefore took a 
pound of ointment of right spikenard of great price 
and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet 
with her hair, and the house was filled with the 
odour of the ointment... .”{ And the Church, in 
our own beautiful Catholic liturgy, burns incense 
at the most solemn moments of her worship. 

This being so, why should we have to conquer 
a widely spread prejudice or sentiment in giving 
their due importance to the influences of smell and 
taste P The reason must be that, smell and taste 
being merely used in practical life for purely 
material purposes, we grow to refer all our intellec- 
tual associations to sight. We confuse the uses of 
sensation with its nature, and the natureof sensation 
being in thefullest sense physical, we areapttothink 
of it as purely material, and incapable of being put 
to intellectual uses. But when we goa little deeper 
into the question, isit not apparent thatthe vulgarity 
or nobility of sensations do not reside in the sensa- 
tionsthemselves, butinthe use to which we put them 
and the images they evoke? What is there so ethe- 
real in the function of seeing? Reading—in other 
words, perceiving coloured strokes—is not more 
intellectual than becoming aware of sounds, scents 


* Cant. i, + Exod. xxx. {John xii. 


96 


CONCLUSION 


or flavours. And if the function be performed by a 
personof lowtastes who delightsin gross and sensual 
descriptions, I, for one, cannot place it any higher 
than hearing, smell or even taste, when employed 
bya manof morerefined nature. Thelatter, assisted 
by his senses, remembers good and beautiful things; 
he recalls the moment, when, as he heard one par- 
ticular sound, inhaled some special odour or tasted 
such and such a thing, he was interested by some 
human being, or by an idea that has remained in 
his memory owing to the physical impression of 
the moment. 

‘* Our imagination is based on the senses, and, to 
recall the past, physical contact is almost a neces- 
sity. To yield to this intuition without disputing the 
subtlety of the theory is the best way of reviving 
in our minds the spirit of past ages and understand- 
ing ‘the spirit’ and not ‘the letter’ only of what was 
but a dry, dull list of names.”* 

Thus considered, the impressions which our 
senses convey are, in a way, but the symbols which 
the soul uses at will; one man will only use his eyes 
for practical everyday life: he comes and goes, 
reads his newspaper, and only notices in people and 
things that which procures him some material 
gratification. Another will be specially impressed 
by beauty of line and colour, the play of light; ina 
word, his zesthetic perceptions dominate all the rest. 
To some people the sound of the sea, the moaning 
of the wind in trees or through doors are only noises 
which become a nuisance if prolonged; for others 
they contain a world of memories and poetical 
impressions, proper to these particular sounds. 

‘*] know,” writes Gogol, ‘‘that many persons 


*Bourget, ‘* Sensations d’Italie.” 


97 7 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


cannot bear creaking doors; I like them very much. 
When I hear a door creak in St Petersburg, | am 
suddenly reminded of a little low room, full of 
country smells and lighted by an antique chandelier. 
Supper is laid on a table near the open window, 
through which can be seen the beauty of a lovely 
night in May. The song of the nightingale fills the 
house and garden, and penetrates to the dimly 
shining river in the distance ; the trees whisper 
softly. Dear God! What distant memories come 
back to me one by one!” 

Very vivid associations cling to the smell of a 
plant, the taste of a fruit or of some seldom tasted 
food. Is it not conventional prejudice to consider a 
person intellectual who carefully preserves an ob- 
ject, be it picture or drapery, and tells you: ‘‘I 
admit it is ugly, but I like to have it near me be- 
cause it reminds me of my parents and my child- 
hood,” and to brand as sensuous another who says: 
‘‘] like to hear that sound, to smell that scent or 
to taste that flavour, not because they are pleasant 
or agreeable, but because they recall the past and 
the memory of people and events who filled a par- 
ticular period of my life.” And when we gradually 
forget—not with the forgetfulness of the mind, 
which a sensation can disperse, but with that incur- 
able infidelity of the heart which time brings with 
it and the laws of nature impose—then we no longer 
seek the sound, the scent, the savour which had 
power to thrill us. What we loved was not the sen- 
sation—that remains intact—but the being whose 
‘*leitmotiv,” so to speak, it was, and who, alas ! is 
nothing to us now. A very commonplace sensation 
can recall a very subtle, delicate impression ; the 


smellof wet pitch and river mud immediately trans- 
98 


CONCLUSION 


ports me to a certain landing place in Switzerland, 
which was the starting point of a delicious boating 
excursion, full of unforgettable memories. When I 
put a little branch of fir before me on my writing- 
table, it is not only to enjoy the smell of resin 
warmed by the October sunshine, but because it re- 
minds me so vividly of a winter spent near the 
Mediterranean, and the multitude of impressions 
I received as I strolled through the pine forests of 
those sunny lands. It is incontestable that taste and 
smell can become the servants of vulgar and sensual 
instincts. The Book of Wisdom admirably describes 
those fools who say: 


Come then, and let us use the things that are present, 
and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth. 

Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and 
let not the flower of the time pass by us. 

Let us crown ourselves with roses before they be 
withered, and let no meadow escape our riot.* 


But shew me the faculty which man has not suc- 
ceeded in profaning or abusing. He seeks to enjoy, 
seize, possess and exhaust that which he was only 
intended to taste; it is then that he sins, his aspira- 
tions die, and he suffers. What is true of the mate- 
rial, is also true of the spiritual world: reflection, 
observation, cautiousnessin trusting to appearances, 
insight into our own and others’ characters, are good 
and necessary things; but when we become intoxi- 
cated by the heady though intellectual fumes of 
analysis, and insist on analysing, dissecting and 
sifting everything, where do we find ourselves P 

To use as much as isnecessary of our faculties and 
impressions without seeking to enjoy them for their 
own sakes is to remain within the due bounds of 
duty and wisdom, but it also brings happiness and 


* Wisdom ii. 
7a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


helps us to retain the poetry of life. When you walk 
along a path and are charmed and obsessed by a 
sweet perfume from one of its borders, allow the 
scent to blow towards you, but do not seek it, nor 
even linger too long to breathe it: above all, do not 
sacrifice the flower for its perfume; that is selfish, 
bad and illusory. Leave the flower to bloom and 
sweeten the way for the traveller who may come 
after you; if none follow, let it live for its own sake, 
for God, who made it so lovely and so fragrant. He 
knows each beauty of the flower He created that 
it might glorify Him silently. 

Reader, whether you have eyesight or are blind, 
memory, sweet memory, is all that you can depend 
on to preserve for you eternally the one precious 
hour of your life, or the dear personality who walked 
beside you on your way. Courage! God will keep 
that memory for you, and some day a chance resem- 
blance will bring back the picture with added 
brightness. Have faith, for hope and memory are 
the best that life can offer; remembrance is better 
than possession, a short glimpse of the ideal is better 
than a life-long disillusionment, and even here 
wisdom is happiness. 

Now that I have tried to portray the blind 
woman’s contact with nature, people and things, 
her disposition, her capacity for love and sorrow, 
in a word, her share of life, will anyone maintain 
that a mathematical division can be made of her ad- 
vantages and disadvantages? Can it be said that her 
chances of happiness are infinitesimal, and that it is 
no sacrifice for a blind girl to enter a convent, since 
all that she gives up, though really tangible sacri- 
fices to a girl with sight, are only dreams and 


illusions to the blind P Now, in the first place, does 
100 


CONCLUSION 2 rt: e: 


the normal girl always find that certain happiness 
in the world which she expects, and from which the 
three vows of religion debar her? This cannot be 
answered lightly, and I will return to the subject 
later. Further, is it nothing to give up our hopes 
beforelife’sterrible lessons have taught us that they 
are nothing but illusions P* 

I have already said that to enthusiastic, imagina- 
tive natures there is greater poetry and charm in 
seeing and hearing things from a distance than from 
close by. Distance minimizes and effaces hard, 
coarse details, and imagination has the marvellous 
power of adding to the evidence of the senses, 
while it weaves the real and the ideal into one. The 
same may be said of what are knownas ‘‘the joys 
of life,” hence both the anticipation and the recol- 
lection of the supreme moment are always sweeter 
than the moment itself. The blind woman may pic- 
ture comfort, independence, home life and friend- 
ship, and may imagine in her youth that perfect 
happiness would consist in possessing such blessings. 

Everywhere and in everything our illusions are 
what we hold dearest, since, created by ourselves, 
they are absolutely conformed to our tastes and 
aspirations; the reality is sure to jar, wound or 
disappoint us in some direction. And to speak 
frankly, are we to gauge the depth of a sacrifice by 
the real enjoyment of the thing sacrificed? Does not 
virtue generally become easier, when we have dis- 
covered how very little real pleasure is to be got 
out of the forbidden action? Is not the most difficult 
thing of all to give up the fancied good, which we 
have clothed in all our own ideas and illusions P 


* The depth of tragedy does not lie in the greatness of the aim before us, 
but in the violence with which we pursue it.”—Vogiié, ‘‘ Le Roman Russe.” 


101 


THE BLINI D SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


A the spiritual combat of life the struggle lies more 
between thoughts than realities; appearances are 
tempting, for when the harm is done, if we persevere 
in it, it is more often from a weak will than from 
attraction to what so soon satiated us. Sacrifice as 
wellas happiness is essentially subjective; God alone 
can judge of the relative value of either. It follows 
that it would be as cruel as unreasonable to say to 
anyone: ‘‘In giving yourself, you think the gift has 
value, it has none; you think you are offering up 
realities, they are phantoms.” Would you have the 
questionable courage to open the eyes of a child 
who in his great love offers you a trifle or a flower, 
which he prizes because he knows of no greater 
giftP We read in the ‘‘Imitation,” ‘‘A prudent lover 
considereth not so much the gift as the love of the 


™ the giver.” It is evidently thus that God looks upon 


the gifts of His poor creatures. As the blind girl 
crosses the convent threshold, she too may have 
something to leave behind, as she makes her burnt- 
offerings of sweet savour. It matters little whether 
it be reality or illusion; sometimes in giving up our 
illusions, we sacrifice what we hold dearest on earth. 


102 


PART THE SECOND 


THE COMMUNITY OF THE BLIND 
SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


THEIR ORIGIN 


BOOK I. Their Origin and Founders 

N studying the evolution of charitable organ- 

izations we find that even amongst the most 

important and flourishing there were few which 
did not begin in humility and uncertainty. In nearly 
every case the man who was the instrument of 
Providence in a work destined to become famous 
had, so to speak, to feel his way; he had a certain 
aim in view, and circumstances (that is to say, Provi- 
dence) led him in another direction. Sometimes it is 
only late in the life of a Founder that he undertakes 
the work which posterity recognizes as his raison 
d’étre; he suddenly discovers that some detail, a 
mere accessory of the creative scheme, has been its 
chief success; it has developed and become the domi- 
nating idea, the mainspring of the whole. In the 
face of such facts let who will put his faith in hu- 
man calculations. 

The work of Mére Bergunion and the Abbé Juge 
was not exempt from uncertainty and humility in 
its beginnings. The sketch of the lives of these two 
Founders of the Blind Nuns of St Paul will shew 
their early anxieties and hesitation.* 


*The community are preparing copious biographies of their founders and 
first nuns, which doubtless will eventually be published. The following is 
merely intended as a comprehensive sketch. 


105 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


@, I. The Founders 


NNE* or Annette Bergunion was born in 
Ae Rue Trognon, parish of St Merry, 

Paris, her parents being small tradespeople. 
Her mother brought her up piously, and in the 
strictest ideas of order and economy. At sixteen 
she entered the novitiate of the Mére-de-Dieu nuns 
at Versailles, but a year later she returned home 
to nurse her invalid mother. She herself was delicate 
until towards the year 1850. 

Though very ardent and devout by nature, she 
was apt to be nervous and unsettled. She had always 
longed to enter religion. Though her parents, being 
opposed to her vocation, tried to find her a husband 
of their own choosing, Annette refused absolutely. 
M. and Mme Bergunion, in the hope of overcoming 
her opposition, took the strong measure of turning 
their daughter out of the house. This was in 1837, 
when Anne was thirty-three years of age; her niece 
and a maid servant who was entirely devoted to 
her shared her exile. As she had to make a liveli- 
hood, she took the advice of her confessor, Pére 
Boulanger, and opened an outfitting work-room for 
young girls in the Impasse des Vignes. This work 
was transferred later to No 18 Rue des Postes, a 
house next door to the Jesuits and belonging to 
them. 

Anne, with implicit faith in Providence, went to 
church, and kneeling before the altar of the Blessed 


* Jeanne is the name in the baptismal register in the church, but she was 
known all her life as Anne, or Annette. 


106 


THE FOUNDERS 


Virgin, placed the undertaking under our Lady’s 
protection, begging her to intercede for her suppliant 
and send her some work. The prayer was granted, 
and tradition says that the work-room, which finally . 
employed as many as eighty young girls, never 
wanted for orders. Every evening the best-behaved 
of the girls were allowed to lay their work before 
the statue of our Lady, the patroness of the work- 
room. 

At last M. and Mme Bergunion were reconciled 
to. the idea of Annette remaining single, and took 
her back. She settled at home again, still keeping 
on the work-room in the Rue des Postes. Her 
mother being still ill, Annette nursed her devotedly 
till her death in 1843, when she transferred her 
devotion to her father, who died two years after. 
Being now her own mistress and still desirous of be- 
coming a nun, Anne Bergunion entered the novitiate 
of the Sacré-Coeur on the advice of Pére Varin, 
whom, it will be remembered, was the adviser and 
helper of Mme Barat; but as a prudent director he 
induced Anne to keep her work-room open, in case 
she did not get on at the convent. This proved a 
wise precaution, for Anne, soon discovering that 
she had mistaken her vocation, left the Sacré-Coeur 
and returned to the Rue des Postes. 

The years went on. Mile Bergunion busied her- 
self with works of charity, besides her work-room, 
where she employed neglected children. Still she 
could not find rest or peace of mind; at forty-five 
years of age she was still undecided as to what her 
real life-work was to be. In 1840 she was begged to 
admit blind girls and deaf-mutes into the work-room 
where homeless waifs and strays were harboured, 


but she always refused on account of her health. 
107 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Several people approached her repeatedly on this 
subject, but without success. Atlast Pere Varininthe 
latter years of his life—hedied April 18, 1850—think- 
ing that perhaps these repeated demands were an 
indication of the will of Providence and that Mlle 
Bergunion was at last about to see her way, and to 
put her devotion and courage to good use, urgently 
pressed her to admit blind work-girls., 

In consequence towards 1851 she admitted four 
rather troublesome and utterly untrained girls, and 
shortly after a fresh group of six, of whom three 
had been expelled from the Institute for the Blind. 
With such materials she had the courage to begin 
her work-room for blind girls, which was destined 
later to become the community. The very primitive 
premises consisted of an oratory and refectory on 
the ground floor with a little courtyard; and on the 
first floor the work-room itself, Mlle Bergunion’s 
room or office and the dormitory. Difficulties and 
censure were not wanting, but the recollection of 
Pére Varin’s words, ‘‘Courage and confidence,” 
supported her. Her great treasure was a little book, 
preserved now in the convent as a relic; she had 
read it one day, and ever after it was her most 
cherished memory and an influence over her whole 
life: this was the life of Mlle de Lamourous.* Many 
a time did she meditate on the naive conversation 
described by the biographer, and apply it to her 
work. 

‘*The gentleman did not speak in a way calcu- 
lated to encourage us much; he said he did not 
know why, but houses like ours did not succeed as a 
rule. 


*“*Wie de Mile de Lamourous, dite la Bonne Mére,” by Abbé Pouget, 
Périsse, 1843. 


108 


/ 


THE FOUNDERS 


*** Do you want to know the reason?’ I answered. 
‘It is because people make their calculations in a 
human way before receiving girls. They want a 
convenient house, linen in the cupboard, corn in 

the granary, money in the drawers and everything 
- comfortable. They do not trust entirely to our 
Lord’s words, Seek first the kingdom of God and 
His righteousness, and all these things shall be 
added unto you.’ The gentleman took my answer 
in good part, and certainly our work, being purely 
spiritual, can neither be established nor maintained 
on human ideas or on calculations agreeable to na- 
ture. But it is for us, the directresses of the House 
of Mercy, to draw down on it that superfluity which 
God has promised to thrift and care. Let us value 
whatever Providence has deigned to send us. How- 
ever coarse or cheap these objects may be, they are 
the gifts of God. We must beware of self-deception, 
and not procure comforts for ourselves which, 
though nature does not find them too luxurious, are 
unsuited to poverty; such things would draw down 
on us the anger of God, and deprive the house of 
that superfluity on which it depends for existence. 
We are the first poor to live here, and we ought to 
add to the prosperity of the house by our order and 
economy. We must never try to possess what the 
poor cannot have. Let us always keep an evenmind, 
free from extremes of anxiety or agitation.” 

Tradition says that one day as Anne Bergunion 
was reading aloud the life of Mlle de Lamourous to 
a select audience of blind and other girls, she came 
to these words: ‘‘People think that a great many 
things are necessary for founding a House of Mercy. 
What is really required? A house with four rooms, 
namely, chapel, dormitory, work-room and refec- 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


tory. To start with, the refectory might be com- 
bined with the kitchen. What else is wanted? 
Enough bread for one day, work for one week, 
and six francs in money. That is quite enough. In 
my opinion that is all that is necessary to found as 
many Houses of Mercy as you wish; I speak of what 
I believe Almighty God wants of me—others may 
have other views and act differently. As regards 
myself personally, I believe that Almighty God 
wishes me to work in the way I have described.” 

These words, the answer to long perplexity of 
heart and mind, moved Anne and roused her en- 
thusiasm. ‘‘Well then,” she said, turning to her 
little audience, ‘‘if you are willing, we too will 
found a community.” 

I wish I knew the date of this reading, which must 
have been a day of days in Anne Bergunion’s life. 
Ishould have liked to perpetuate the memory which 
was so solemnly enshrined in her heart, for I have 
a predilection for such moments in the life of a foun- 
dress. They are times of hope and enthusiasm. Ob- 
stacles loom large, everything is lacking, but nothing 
can damp her courage and confidence! She has not 
yet begun to face those countless, unforeseen diffi- 
culties which will clog her steps and, like devouring 
microbes, use up her strength and wear out her 


will-power in trivial yet incessant struggles.* 


*One of the first mothers of the Assumption writes of a similar phase, 
that it was the beginning of great things. ‘‘ The hand of God could be seen so 
plainly at work. It seemed the fountain from which our lives as Assumption 
nuns were to flow; we were vessels, filled that they might be poured out 
anew. We were penetrated, especially our mother, by the great graces which 
God bestowed on us in those early days. We were told that there is a special 
blessing on foundations at their commencement, and we could feel it. We 
seemed to be in touch with the supernatural; we listened for the voice of 
God, and He seemed sensibly present in our midst. The real poverty in which 
we were living kept us completely detached from created things, and obe- 
dience, which M. Combalot made us unsparingly practise at every moment, 
annihilated our own wills, the obstacle which would have kept us from God.” 
—‘*The Foundation of the Order of the Assumption.” 

110 


THE FOUNDERS 


If we recollect that a few years before Mlle Ber- 
gunion hardly dared introduce one or two blind 
girls into her work-room for fear of their becoming 
a burden, we can form some idea of the progress 
which love of the blind had made in her heart and 
mind. Indeed it was now no longer a question of 
housing a few blind girls or children for a com- 
paratively short time, but the project was to orga- 
nize religious life for the blind, an absolutely new 
departure. All religious orders, congregations and 
convents of all kinds retain in their communities 
any one member who loses her sight, and generally 
make her their special care, but her affliction classes 
her among the sick and the infirm, the exceptions; 
no one hitherto had conceived, or at any rate rea- 
lized, the project of founding a Congregation and a 
Rule for the blind. The little community of the Rue 
des Postes had no assured resources whatever, not 
even the next day’s food, but Mile Bergunion 
trusted in Providence. The Abbé de la Bouillerie 
and later Mgr Sibour visited the work-rooms dur- 
ing their transition stage, and were most encou- 
raging. In 1852 postulant’s dress was adopted, a 
fair number of women with eyesight presented 
themselves, and in January, 1853, the work-room 
being too small, the community was transported 
to 205 Rue de Vaugirard, in larger and more sui- 
table premises. On May 12, 1853, thirteen nuns, of 
whom seven were blind, received the habit, and 
Mile Anne Bergunion became Sister Saint Paul, 
the Apostle struck with blindness and miraculous- 
ly cured being chosen patron of this spiritual 
family of blind and normal women.* When once 


*Later on, towards 1876, it was thought necessary to reduce the number 
of blind. The ecclesiastical superiors, in view of the small help which the 


111 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


the community was formally established, the Jesuit 
fathers, in conformity with their rule, ceased to be 
its ordinary chaplains, and it was then that Provi- 
dence sent to the nuns the Abbé Juge, who may also 
be quite legitimately considered as one of the 
founders. 


Son of a commissary,* Henri Juge was born at 
Angouléme in 1810. He was put into a little school 
kept, it is said, by a quondam revolutionary. Being 
of a gentle, charming disposition, with an absolutely 
equable temper, he seldom penetrated below the 
surface of things. In turn he took up painting, archi- 
tecture and physics, and was an assistant for some 
time in a chemical laboratory. His father, though in 
easy circumstances, allowed him very little money, 
and at twenty Henri Juge was obliged to give paint- 
ing lessons. At twenty-four he married Mlle Eliane 
de Bazaugour, who, being very pious, persuaded 
him to return to his religious duties, and he became 
intensely devout. They travelled a great deal, prin- 
cipally in Italy, where he loved to paint. But in 1848 
he lost his wife and new-born daughter. After this 
terrible grief he returned to France, anda year later 
enteredthe Seminary at Versailles. Hethusfufilled a 
promise made long beforeto his wife; they had mutu- 
ally agreed that the survivor should consecrate him- 
self or herself to God. He was then thirty-nine years 
old. The catastrophe which threatened to ruin his 
life was destined to give it definite aim and true 
blind nuns could be to the community, would only authorize the admission of 
one blind postulant to every two others. 

* These details are taken partly from the pamphlet, ‘‘A Benefactor to the 
Blind,” by Commander Barazar, partly from manuscript notes drawn up and 


preserved in the community, and partly from notes furnished by the Abbé 
Juge’s family. 


112 


THE FOUNDERS 


meaning, and to become the starting-point of a much 
higher and more fruitful existence. 

Ordained priest on June 6, 1852, the Abbé Juge 
accompanied Mgr Bonamy to Rome, and then re- 
‘turned to Paris to seek an outlet for his zeal, not 
feeling drawn to parish work. It was then that the 
Abbé Lambert, chaplain to the Institute for Deaf- 
mutes, introduced to his notice the little community 
of Sister St Paul. He was much interested, and im- 
mediately offered to become her honorary chaplain. 
At his suggestion the money which he would have 
received was employed in keeping up the chapel and 
maintaining one more blind nun. On November 20, 
1853, he said Mass for the first time in the humble 
chapel of the convent in the Rue de Vaugirard, and 
every day he walked three miles to reach it. From 
this time he gave himself entirely to the nuns of St 
Paul; intelligence, activity, fortune, friends, know- 
ledge ofthe world—all he possessed wasat theservice 
of the community. He made an excellent spiritual 
and temporal guide, not only a chaplain, but a fa- 
ther, which he was always called. 

The Abbé Juge’s co-operation was a real blessing 
to the work. In order to thoroughly understand the 
feelings of the blind he made a point of doing as 
many things as possible in the dark, and in winter 
he dressed completely without a light. The Abbé 
Juge and Anne Bergunion had both arrived at their 
true destination by widely differing and unexpected 
paths. He wasthenforty-twoand Sister St Paul forty- 
eight, the latter having but eleven years longer to 
live. During these eleven years they were to work 
together definitely at an enterprise looked upon as 
very novel and rather rash, a community of blind 


: 113 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Mgr de la Bouillerie and Mgr Sibour continued 
to interest themselves in the infant community. Pius 
IX encouraged it as early as 1853, and later for- 
mally approved it, saying that it ‘‘supplied a want 
in the Church.” Sister St Paul having been miracu- 
lously cured of a serious illness by the intercession 
of our Lady of Victories, she made her first vows 
in 1855 at the same time as four blind sisters. The 
convent in the Rue de Vaugirard had for some time 
been too small for its inhabitants, and the founders 
looked about for more spacious premises in the envi- 
rons of Paris. Trusting to the resources which Pro- 
vidence might send them in the future, and having 
a part of the Abbé Juge’s fortune at their disposal, 
they purchased the little estate of Bourg-la-Reine, 
whither the community was transferred in 1855. It 
was spacious and airy, but the community had no 
special endowment. Sister St Paul’s meagre savings 
had long since been absorbed, the Abbé Juge had 
not money enough to support the whole undertak- 
ing, and the work done by the blind brought in very 
little. The nuns who could see were employed in 
the work of the convent; the community were 
obliged to live on alms, and Bourg-la-Reine was 
too far from Paris for collecting or begging assis- 
tance. Hence a return to Paris was resolved upon. 
After much deliberation and discussion and many 
prayers, without ready money or tenants for Bourg- 
la-Reine, the founders bought a house and small 
park which had belonged to Chateaubriand, where 
he wrote a great part of the ‘‘Mémoires d’Outre- 
Tombe,” and which he had sold to the archbishopric 
when he himself settled in the Rue du Bac. This 
property was 114 Rue d’Enfer, the street being al- 


ready full of convents and charitable institutions, 
114 


THE FOUNDERS 


They had to start building immediately. During the 
work Sister St Paul and the Abbé Juge came to 
Paris every day to organize and make plans. Then 
the community was divided: one half settled in the 
Rue d’Enfer, and the other remained at Bourg-la- 
Reine until the alterations were complete. The Abbé 
Juge said Mass at the two houses alternately. Fi- 
nally the entire community reassembled in the Rue 
d’Enfer on November 11, 1858, to sing the ‘‘ Mag- 
nificat” in thanksgiving. The congregation num- 
bered forty-two persons; resources were extremely 
limited and debts heavy, and the strictest, severest 
economy had to be observed. Mother St Paul, who 
had all her life been in straitened circumstances, 
kindly yet firmly impressed on her daughters the 
virtue of ‘‘holy poverty.” She gave them the ex- 
ample herself, never wasting a moment of her time, 
an end of cotton or a scraping of lettuce. She was 
said to be often troubled by intense anxiety, but 
she kept that between herself and God, and did not 
waste her time in melancholy. She was perpetually 
busy; she had trained herself to leave the chapel 
for the parlour, and could break off her intercourse 
with almighty God at any moment to talk to a nun 
who had need of her advice. She constantly re- 
peated the watchword of Pére Varin and Madame 
Barat, ‘‘God alone!” She had the most firm and 
living faith in the universal providenceand guidance 
of God, and withthe greatest confidencereferred the 
success of all her efforts to Him. Timid as she had 
been in early youth, Mother St Paul had now ac- 
quired the art of governing with great firmness and 
authority. She was tall, cheerful and wholesome in 
appearance, and had made herself much liked. In 


reality she was very humble, and blamed hexselt 
115 a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


whenever anything went wrong in the community. 
‘*T ought to goaway,”’she used to say, ‘‘and then the 
work would grow and everything prosper.” This 
wish, felt by so many founders, was soon realized, 
for Mother St Paul died on September 7, 1863,* 
aged fifty-nine, after only ten years of religious pro- 
fession. In fact, she only made her perpetual vows in 
1860, although she had wished to become a nun ever 
since the year 1820. On August 27, a few days be- 
fore her death, she insisted on the election of a new 
Superior, and had the consolation of seeing the com- 
munity choose the one out of her daughters most 
fitted by her intelligence and necessary virtues for 
the post, although the latter was only twenty-six years 
old and had only been a nun for eighteen months.f 

But though the Mother Foundress was gone, the 
Abbé Juge, always known as the Father Founder, 
remained; and for eighteen years he was to con- 
tinue devoting himself to the Blind Nuns of St Paul, 
whose interests gradually absorbed his entire life. 
In 1870, during the siege of Paris, he transformed 
the convent into a hospital, with himself as chap- 
lain, and the soldiers grew as fond of him as were 
the nuns and children. At the time of the Commune 
the house was several times in great danger, but he 
refused to yield to suggestions of taking down the 
cross from the door. ‘‘ No,” he would say, ‘‘it pro- 
tects the house.” On May 18, 1871, he was arrested 
in spite of his vigorous protestations and imprisoned 
at Mazas, being finally transferred with hostages to 
La Roquette. Luckily, in the latter place he found 
himself with some ecclesiastics, gendarmes and 


police, who barricaded themselves and were re- 


* She was buried in the tomb of the community of Blind Nuns of St Paul 
at the Montparnasse cemetery. 
+ Mlle Marie Vaugeois, in religion ae Mary of the Sacred Heart. 
1 


THE FOUNDERS 


leased on May 27, so that on Sunday, May 28, he 
was able to go back to St Paul’s. 

The commanding officers who had been witnesses 
of the Abbé Juge’s devotion to the wounded soldiers 
wished to decorate him, but his answer was, ‘‘I am 
waiting for a greater reward.” He worked unre- 
mittingly for another ten years, and in 1876 Pius [X 
sent him the official Brief of Approbation for his 
undertaking. On October 24, 1881, feast of St 
Raphael the second patron of the community, he 
had an attack of congestion of the brain. For twelve 
years after, the once vigorous and active man was 
semi-paralysed. He died on December 25, 1893,* 
after years of vegetation, and the cruel physical 
and moral sufferings to which his life condemned 
him. This concludes the all too summary sketch of 
the lives of the founders of the Blind Nuns of St 
Paul, and we shall shortly be able to study their 
great and holy work 


Many will doubtless reproach me with having 
been too brief in relating the lives of Mother St 
Paul and the Abbé Juge; they may think that I did 
not appreciate the true work of the founders, be- 
cause their lives contained no extraordinary events. 
This reproach would be unjust; I am absolutely 
convinced that to do anything really great one 
must have a dominating personality and a strong 
and vigorous faith. Only such natures have the 
courage to found a community with the necessary 
authority to assemble, concentrate and govern their 
flock, however small it may be, since humanity 
only respects what surpasses it. But, after all, is it 


necessary to describe the whole of any life without 


*He also was buried in the community tomb. 
117 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


sparing our readers any details or a single one of 
those many dull, uniform, monotonous days, which 
the man who is living through them finds hard 
enough, and no more wishes to remember than the 
grains of sands on a hot, uncomfortable road? It 
has always been very bitter to me to see the care- 
fully detailed lives of so many very good, and even 
holy, people thrownaside. Theconscientiousauthor, 
in his enthusiasm for his hero, has collected and re- 
lated everything, thinking he can never say enough; 
the reader, on the other hand, always thinks there 
is too much, and wishes the line had been drawn 
at what was essential or characteristic. In reality 
we are only interested by those periods in the lives 
of others which we ourselves should have wished 
to live through. Still, you may say that, if important 
events are wanting, you have the psychological 
analysis or study. But is it not usually a difficult 
point to decide what special events or facts were 
of psychological importance? If we have not known 
intimately the man or woman about whom we are 
writing, we have to work more or less from frag- 
mentary notes, and to use subjective, quite as often 
as objective, impressions of memory. In fact, the 
acts and words of people we have known affect us 
according to the mood we ourselves are in when we 
are writing, and it is this mixture of our own and 
others’ thoughts which memory preserves. If this 
be so, as we strive to reconstitute a whole existence 
from recollections and descriptions, we must often 
be liable to emphasize as essential and important 
what was merely relative and accidental in the 
character or the life we are endeavouring to ana- 
lyse. And, after all, apart from the tangible results, 
what do we know of the really psychological influ- 


THE FOUNDERS 


ences in lifeP People say: ‘‘Such a period was the 
happiest or saddest of his life.” How do we know 
that this was soY I quite agree that appearances 
may have been in favour of it, and doubtless con- 
temporaries and friends affirmed it, but what do we 
know of the man’s innermost soul, as he lived 
through those happy yearsP Alas! perhaps while 
all the world was praising brilliant outward results, 
the poor wretch and his own conscience were play- 
ing out a grim tragedy which dominated all the rest. 
If it be idle, from a philosophical point of view, to 
put everything into words, is it not a little contrary 
to the spirit of religious humility to wish to hand 
down to posterity every action of some poor human 
being, with the most trifling episodes in his life, and 
each word and sigh that escaped him till the day of 
his death? David said long ago: ‘‘Our years shall 
be considered as a spider... For my days are va- 
nished like smoke.” * Although threethousand years 
have passed since then, with all their progress, our 
insignificant lives are still as unstable. Let us not 
try to retain the vapour; let it blow where it will. 
It is enough honour to say of any man what was 
written of our Lord Himself: 


‘*He went about doing good.” 


* Psalm cii. 


119 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


G, II. Preliminaries—Aim and Spirit of the 
Foundation 


O thoroughly understand the spirit in which 

Mile Bergunion undertook her work among 
blind girls, it is useful to explain, though the 

subject be tedious, the exact position of blind wo- 
men and girls in France, and Paris especially, be- 
tween 1840 and 1850. Of course we can only ap- 
proximately arrive at what public benevolence and 
private charity were doing for them, owing to the 
time which has elapsed since then, and the scarcity 
of statistics; but even Mlle Bergunion herself had 
only vague impressions rather than exact informa- 
tion on the subject. Her limited education and poor 
health, added to all the daily cares of the work- 
room in the Rue des Postes, did not allow of her 
taking very careful statistics or making very minute 
inquiries; she was therefore guided principally by 
what came under her own notice or was told her 
by her companions. Between 1840 and 1850, that is 
to say during the time Mile Bergunion was pressed 
to receive blind workers, the situation of blind 
women in France was as nearly as possible the fol- 
lowing: out of 35,783,170 inhabitants, about 30,000 
were blind, and of these 13,000 were females. Paris, 
having at that time a population of 1,224,164, con- 
tained at least 1,500 blind, of whom 650 were fe- 
males. There were few resources for so many 
people; the Quinze-Vingts Hospital, which any 
blind person could enter, had about 250 indoor 


patients, of whom 100 were women and girls, and 
120 


THEIR AIM AND SPIRIT 


it paid a few hundred of outdoor female patients 
over the age of twenty-one a pension of 100, 150 or 
200 francs.* The Salpétriére contained about 300 
blind females; in homes for incurables such as the 
one at Ivry, the Six- Vingts at Chartres, and the Rue 
de Jarente at Lyons, there were a few blind female 
indoor patients, but it is difficult to give the exact 
figures. Blind children living with their parents in 
Paris could claim five francs (4s. 2d.) a month from 
the local Charity Organization Office. For educa- 
tion there was the Valentin Haiiy Schoolf in the 
Rue St-Victor, reorganized in 1816 under the name 
of Royal Institute for the Youthful Blind, and in- 
stalled in 1843 in a specially constructed edifice, 
56 Rue des Invalides, which sheltered chitty girls 
between the age of nine and twenty-one.} 

After the year 1834 a dozen blind girls were added 
to the Deaf-muite Institute, founded at Lille by the 
Soeurs de la Sagesse. In the Refuge of St-Hilaire, 
a kind of home opened in Paris in 1846 by Dr Ra- 
tier in the Rue de I’Ecole Polytechnique, and after- 
wards transferred to 37 Rue de la Montagne-Ste- 
Geneviéve, a few little blind girls were taught 
with the boys, from whom they were separated by 
a thin partition, as was the custom in the mixed 
schools of the period. Such was about the extent of 
the assistance given to the blind in these days; to 
help one thousand out of thirteen thousand blind 
women and girls is notalarge proportion. From 1822 
the Royal Institute, on the initiative of the director, 
Dr Pignier, began to teach religious music as a pro- 


* £4, £6 or £8. + “‘Les Aveugles par un Aveugle,” Hachette, Paris. 
[In the session of 1848 the General Council for the thirty-six depart- 
ments voted the sum of 49,825 francs as pensions for one hundred blind boys 
or girls from nine to twenty-one years of age. The departments of the Seine 
and the borough of Paris were responsible for 7,490 francs to be distributed 
amongst nine blind inmates. 
121 


~ 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


fession. It offered to prepare a few youths and girls 
for the career of organist, and by 1850 several in- 
mates had obtained situations. Those young girls 
‘who were not musically gifted, and who worked at 
knitting, netting, spinning, cork-slipper making and 
other very poorly paid trades, found themselves in a 
difficult position when the time arrived for leaving 
theinstitute. Those whohad homesreturned tothem, 
but without always finding work; others knew not 
whither to turn, and, in spite of his robust optimism, 
Dr Ratier wrote that he could see no future for 
blind girls trained to manual labour. It was hard 
for them to be shut up in a hospital at the age of 
twenty, and sad to have to begin thus early-atife-of 
old age, helplessness and oblivion. Furthermore, 
a great many blind children lived in ignorance 
and misery, because there was no room for them 
in the Royal Institute. A few people who were 
interested in the blind realized the sad state of 
things; Mlle Bergunion’s work-room in the Rue des 
Postes happened to be just in the neighbourhood 
where the interests of the blind were much dis- 
cussed: it was near the Rue St-Victor, the Rue St- 
Jacques, the Rue de |’Ecole Polytechnique and the 
Rue de la Montagne-Ste-Geneviéve; so that she 
was constantly brought intocontact with the saddest 
cases. One day some one would tell her of a little 
girl old enough to make her first Communion, who 
had never heard of almighty God, and whose 
parents left her crouching in a corner of their 
garret or dragged her about the streets to attract 
pity. Another time she would hear of a poor blind 
woman left without food or fire in a filthy den, and 
sometimes they would bring her a grown-up girl, 


tall and handsome in spite of her affliction, house- 
122 


THEIR AIM AND SPIRIT 


less and homeless, reduced to begging under arch- 
ways. Anne Bergunion trembled at the thought of 
so much misery and danger. Towards 1842 an enter- 
prise was started under the name of ‘‘The Society 
for Protecting and Assisting Blind Workers,” its” 
objects being to help those who had learnt a trade 
at the Royal Institute or elsewhere, and also to 
look after children old enough to go to school. This 
society was presided over by M. Portalis, first pre- 
sident of the Cour de Cassation, several parish 
priests and chaplains in Paris being on the council, 
together with Messieurs Dufau, director, and Gau- 
det, chief instructor, of the Royal Institute for 
the Youthful Blind. The general secretary, M. 
Edouard Morel, professor at the Deaf-mute Insti- 
tute, in the Rue St-Jacques, was the soul of the 
work; M. Pélicier, a young government official, 
presided over a work-room in connexion with the 
same enterprise at 53 Rue Notre-Dame-des- 
Champs; the latter was employing twelve work- 
men in 1844. The Society employed them in reseat- 
ing cane chairs and weaving coarse linen, allowing 
them a few pence profit by way of encouragement. 
The enterprise was intended to help girls as well as 
young men, but this was not an easy matter. The 
men’s work-room under the immediate supervision 
of the Council cost a great deal to support; the 
directors very rightly concluded that it would be 
better to find a place for the girls where they could 
board. Mlle Bergunion seemed just the person to 
apply to; so she was begged to receive the adult 
pupils of the Society above mentioned, and was 
also asked by Dr Ratier to take in the five or six 
blind children who were all that was left of the St- 


Hilaire Refuge in 1850. These latter were relegated 
123 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


to the back of Mlle Bergunion’s work-room. There 
is no mention of this amalgamation in the manu- 
script records of Mlle Bergunion, drawn up by the 
community of Blind Nuns of St Paul, but it took 
place, as the last pupils of M. Ratier* remember 
distinctly the final phase of the St-Hilaire Refuge, 
and their residence with Mlle Bergunion, where 
they slept in a kind of small dormitory adjoining 
the work-room. Dr Ratier appears to have been 
Mlle Bergunion’s principal adviser at thistime, which 
is doubtless the reason of the Foundress writing in 
the Constitutions that the community could take 
charge of little boys under nine and look after the 
blind in general. The want was greatly felt of an 
establishment whose very elastic rules should admit 
young girls past the age for admission to the Royal 
Institution—where there were very few vacancies 
—blind girls, women who could not get into the 
Quinze-Vingts, and quite young male and female 
children before their first Communion. 

As I have mentioned before, Mlle Bergunion, 
in the beginning of her labours, happened to come 
across very troublesome girls, some of whom had 
been expelled from the Institute, and were there- 
fore the dregs of the blind population, and very 
unintelligent. She set the cleverest of her first four 
blind workers to teach the litthe German girls be- 
longing to the work-room. The success of this 
attempt gave her a certain amount of confidence in 
the possibility of employing the blind. Later on, in 
describing her efforts, the Foundress wrote: ‘‘From 
time to time we used to talk to the blind of their 
position. Accustomed always to hear that they were 


* Many are still alive; one of them, M. Larchevéque, is an indoor patient 
at the Quinze-Vingts at the moment of writing (1901). 


124 


THEIR AIM AND SPIRIT 


a burden to others, and utterly useless, the poor 
creatures had sunk into a state of the profoundest 
distrust and discouragement. God inspired me with 
the idea of trying to makethem useful, and fortu- 
nately I was able to teach them to help.me.” They 
were employed in housework, cooking and attending 
to the dormitories. One of them cleaned Mlle Ber- 
gunion’s room, another, assisted by a child who 
could see, was made portress. It was already a great 
step to employ such defective material without too 
much discouragement or too little confidence. Still, 
confidence seems to have been very limited. As the 
Foundress had had very troublesome characters to 
deal with among her first recruits, she fancied that 
they would all be alike and that her mission was bound 
to be very arduous. She imagined in all sincerity 
that it is far harder to educate blind girls than 
others, and that all work among the blind demands 
complete abnegation and self-sacrifice. When she 
heard one day in a sermon, that Blessed Peter 
Claver signed his vows with the words ‘‘ Peter 
Claver, slave for life of negroes,” she exclaimed 
enthusiastically, ‘‘And I will be the slave of the 
Blind!” in naive ignorance that slavery does not 
mean one special form of work, but anything which 
absorbs our whole heart and strength. Besides, it 
is difficult to lose habits of mind, acquired in any 
one profession or occupation which we have fol- 
lowed for some time. For instance, charitable per- 
sons accustomed to deal with the poor, when they 
begin to help the blind will only look upon them as 
paupers to be relieved, and will find it very difficult 
to believe that many of them—especially children 
—may be put in the way of earning their own 


living. Anne Bergunion herself had been accustomed 
125 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


from childhood to steady, elaborate work; her 
work-room was celebrated for fine needlework and © 
supplied the best shops; she knew by hard ex- 
perience how little the expertest and quickest 
women make by their needle. Naturally she saw 
that blind girls either could not sew at all, or very 
clumsily ; knitting alone seemed possible to them, 
and doubtless no idea had yet dawned on her of 
more lucrative employments in which blind and 
other women could combine. It is therefore only 
natural that she should have looked upon blind 
adults as merely a heavy burden on the establish- 
‘ment. The Society for Helping and Assisting Blind 
Workers helped her by paying 250 francs (£10) for 
the board of each of her pupils, but the Society’s 
own existence was then precarious, and it soon after 
came to an end. 

Mille Bergunion’s idea of her community and its 
work was to offer a life-long home to blind young 
girls and adults who would work enough to keep 
themselves occupied; the inmates who could see 
would practically support the blind and, if they 
could not make enough, would collect alms. This, 
alas! was all that could be said for the old spinsters 
and widows who lost their sight late in life or people 
under forty who were blind from some local affec- 
tion and too delicate for continuous hard work. A 
life-long home is almost always a necessity in such 
cases. But when it comes to the education and train- 
ing of blind children of either sex, it does harm to 
bring them up with theideathat they must inevitably 
enter a Refuge after school, for neither master nor 
pupils will make any efforts or work with energy 
and hope. The Founders of St Paul had very little, 


if any, hope in final results. They were too apt to 
126 


THEIR AIM AND SPIRIT 


confuse all classes of blind people, and could not 
believe, for instance, that intelligent children, with 
a gift for music, could profit by good technical in- 
struction, and in time make a living. Still, there 
were several former pupils of the Institute for the 
Youthful Blind engaged as organists in different 
towns in France. From the year 1858 a great num- 
ber of young girls were successfully trained there 
to teach music, and provided with situations in 
different religious communities, where they could 
gain asmall but certain livelihood. The foundersofSt 
Paul did not keep abreast with what was being done 
in this way; they taught music, but only with a view 
to chants, choruses and harmonium-playing in 
church, with an occasional piece performed on the 
piano during a benefactor’s visit. Gradually they 
enlarged their outlook, as we shall see in studying 
each section of the convent. Mlle Bergunion and 
the Abbé Juge seemed to have acted on their per- 
sonal impulses rather than studied and profited by 
what had been done for the blind before their time. 
Doubtless there are drawbacks to rushing into 
action insufficiently prepared, or without a thorough 
knowledge of the ground to be covered; Mother 
St Paul and the Abbé Juge might have avoided 
many false starts and much waste of time by study- 
ing what had been already done for the blind. But, 
putting one drawback against another (since we can 
so rarely work without any), the best thing is to 
follow St Francis de Sales, who says, ‘‘Simplicity is 
strength, because it acts without waiting to under- 
stand.” And truly, whilst we are busy studying 
statistics, philosophizing on abstract and original 
causes‘of distress, and looking for organizations 


- and universal cures, perhaps we are allowing those 
127 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


around us actually to die of cold, starvation and 
misery. The learned philanthropist sitting after his 
good dinner, in his warm, closely-shuttered study, 
compares his statistics, and seeks a solution for the 
general problem of starvation; while some wretched 
man is shivering outside (for though we are always 
being told of sham beggars, we must not forget that 
real ones exist), or a miserable woman cowers ina 
cotton dress in the December wind. Would it not 
be simpler, even at the risk of being deceived, to 
go down into the street, and help some one, or do 
something, instead of seeking ‘abstract and impos- 
sibly complete solutions? Anne Bergunion and the 
Abbé Juge were among those who acted thus, and 
who will blame them? 


128 


THE CONSTITUTIONS 


@, IfI. The Constitutions—The Rule 


Yr “QHE Rules and Constitutions of a Congre- 
| gation are not drawn up in a day; and the 
best have only been put into writing after 

being practised for some time. St Vincent de Paul, 
when he gave his rules to his mission priests, said to 
them, ‘‘Gentlemen, my brothers, you have waited 
for them some time, and we have been slowin giving 
them to you, partly to imitate our Lord, who workd 
before He began to teach: ‘Coepit Jesus facere et 
docere.’ He practised virtue for the first thirty years 
of His life, and only spent the last three in preaching 
and teaching. Therefore, in your Constitutions you 
will find nothing that you have not put into practice 
with great edification for several years past. If we 
gave yourules that had never yet been followed, they 
might be difficult, but as we are merely giving you 
what youhave practised forso many years with fruit 
and consolation, you can find them useful and easy 
in the future. If we had given rules in the begin- 
ning, before the Company was in working order, you 
might have seen more of the human, and less of the 
Divine in them, a humanly designed and conceived 
plan, instead of the work of Divine Providence; but, 
my Brothers, I could not tell you how the rules or 
anything else in the Congregation were planned, for 
I never thought about it; everything has come into 
practice little by little, and with no visible origin. It 
is one of St Augustine’s maxims that when we can- 
not discover the cause of a good thing, we must refer 


_ it toGod, who inspiredits author. According to this, 
129 9 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


God must be the author of our rules, which were in- 
troduced spontaneously and in a way we cannot de- 
fine. .. . And if you ask me how the practices of the 
Congregation were introduced with the plan of our 
exercises and our work, I must answer that I have 
not the least idea. M. Portail here, who watched the 
beginnings of the little company, can tell yoy that we 
were not thinking of anything of the kind; every- 
thing seemed to come of its own accord in due rota- 
tion. Our numbers increased, and each of us worked 
at his own improvement, and as our community 
grew, so good practices sprung up to enable us tolive 
together and get through our work in harmony.” * 

These words of the ‘‘good Monsieur Vincent, ” full 
of piety and practical common sense, apply equally 
to the position of Sister St Paul. It would have been 
imprudent to draw up Couistitutions and a definite 
Rule, in the early days of a Congregation with such 
_ special and novel aims. Besides, if even the founders 
could have sought precedents and examples for the 
education, training, and work of the blind, in what 
had been done in France and elsewhere during the 
preceding fifty years, there was nothing to guide 
them in writing the Constitutions of a community 
half composed of Blind Nuns. The members of the 
Quinze-Vingts used to call each other Brother and 
Sister, as did those of St Mary’s Confraternity for 
the Blind in Padua; but took no religious vows. In 
these Corporations, which were rather associations 
than communities, the aims were far more material 
than spiritual : the sanctification of souls was subor- 
dinated to the struggle for daily bread, and the 


difficulty of preventing individual members getting 


* Abelly, ‘‘ Vie de St- Vincent-de-Paul.” 
+See the pamphlet : ‘‘ Memorie storiche sui ciechi ed in particolare sulla 
fraglia e sull’ Instituto di Padova, 1882.” Institut des Aveugles de Padoue. 
130 


THE CONSTITUTIONS 


more than their fair share.* Many prayers were 
said and offices recited and sung, but this was in ful- 
filment of handsome endowments for pious inten- 
tions.} 


* “Whe they had occasion to dip into the general purse, to seal mandates 
they had dawn up, or to consult documents in the archives, they went to the 
Treasury little cabinet containing the hospital’s most precious possessions : 
Church reiics, jewels and plate, money in cash, the lease.of the house, and the 
official seals of the Congregation. The room containing all this wealth was 
protected by a lock with three keys ; one was given to the Superior, one to a 
professed, and one to a lay-brother. This placed the key-holders above sus- 
picion, and the Chapter directed that when anyone went to the Treasury 
to take out ‘money, seals, or letters,’ a bell was to be rung summoning the 
Brothers to superintend operations.’’—Léon Le Grand, ‘‘Les Quinze-Vingts.” 

+ ‘*The Quinze-Vingts were not true religious, they did not take vows of 
poverty or chastity, but they describe themselves as living together under 
rule, after giving themselves and the use of their possessions to the house; 
it is easy to understand that their Congregation came to be looked upon as a 
quasi-monastic order; for instance, benefactors would ask to be associated 
with the ‘good deeds and prayers of the blind,’ as they would have done in 
the case of a convent. Furthermore, their resemblance to a hospital caused 
them to be considered a monastic establishment, at a time when all ‘ Maisons- 
Diew’ were ofa religious character. They were often called ‘Eglise et Hostel 
des X V-xx.’ . . To repay royal benefits, the blind had recourse to prayer, the 
wealth of the poor. Every day, as soon as the bell rang for rising, they were 
bound by the statutes of Michel de Brache to say five ‘Our Fathers’ and 
‘Hail, Maries’ for the King, Queen and Royal Family and the honour and 
prosperity of the Kingdom. To these individual prayers were added the solemn 
offices celebrated in church in presence of the whole community, Benedic- 
tions, Masses and processions, to implore the protection of God for the King, 
and peace for France. When a member of the royal family was ill, the Quinze- 
Vingts never failed to join the processions formed to beg his restoration to 
health. . . . We cannot better explain the motives which often inspired this 
generosity than by giving the exact words of Jean de Ferriére to the Congre- 
gation in 1309: ‘ Attendant et considérant les bonnes priéres et oroisons de 
Deu aprez son décez pour Il’4me de lui, et especialement pour les dmes de son 
pére, de sa mére, et de Marguerite, sa premiére fame, que le 300 povres de la 
meson des aveugles de Paris et leurs successeurs puent faere, font, et ne cessent 
de faere nuit et jour, et en son cuer pensant la grant povreté d’iceux, le bon loz, 
la bonne renommée, et la fine probité d’iceux.’ The wish to be associated with 
the prayers of the Quinze-Vingts is specified in several manuscripts of the 
time ; and we have met with the phrase (so familiar to benefactors of religious 
orders) in no less than seventeen papers: ‘Pour estre acceuilliz és priéres, 
biens fais, et oroisons d’icellui hostel.’ This idea, joined to pity for the poor 
blind, is evidently the intention of all the donations which are not expressly 
left for other purposes. . . . The prayersasked by benefactors were not always 
Masses. Thus, Pierre Poiré ordered a weekly recitation on Saturdays of the 
anthem ‘Inviolata,’ in honour of the Blessed Virgin. Nicholas Flamel, 
the celebrated scribe, imposed quite a complicated ceremony on the Quinze- 
Vingts. Every month thirteen blind men with priest, surpliced deacon and 
cross-bearer, were to walk in procession to St-Jacques-la-Boucherie. They 
assisted at a solemn service for the repose of Flamel’s soul; the priest then 
said a Low Mass, and the churchwardens of St-Jacques gave them each time 
_ 47s. p. According to an agreement made in 1473 the factory of St-Jacques 
only paid the Quinze-Vingts 28 s.p. a month, and 3 s.p. a year. This clause 


131 9a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


The blind Quinze-Vingts, like their contempo- 
raries in Padua, called each other Sister and Bro- 
ther, because, according to the custom of the time 
they formed a Confraternity, but these confrater- 
nities were merely guilds or, to use the language 
of to-day, mutual associations or charitable unions, 
and not, strictly speaking, religious communities. 
The Rule of some orders, such as the Visitation, 
admits a blind postulant under certain exceptional 
circumstances, each convent being only allowed to 
contain one. The idea of a convent specially intended 
for blind nuns—intended principally for them, even 
if not entirely composed of them—seems to have 
originated, as I have said before, with the humble 
directress of the Rue des Postes work-room. The 
idea was so novel that the ecclesiastical authority, 
Mgr Sibour, then Archbishop of Paris, recognizing 
the duty of extreme prudence, was very distrustful. 
He feared that Anne Bergunion might be one of 
those visionaries who are always imagining them- 
selves called upon to do something out of the com- 
mon: it seemed extraordinary to him that anyone 
should found a convent for blind nuns, and still 
more so, that blind women should have a vocation 
to the religious life. Mgr Sibour distrusted the 
scheme completely, but the Vicar-General, Abbé 
de la Bouillerie, who knew and approved of the 
work from its birth, warmly defended it; he said 
to the Archbishop: ‘‘When we have been to Holy 
Communion, and we bury our head in our hands, 
becoming blind, the better, so to speak, to recollect 
ourselves in the Divine Presence, does this attitude 


in Flamel’s will was faithfully observed, and in 1613 we find the Chapter direct- 
ing that in conformity with the ancient custom, those who assisted at this 
Memorial Service ‘seront tenuz d’aller et revenir avec la modestie joyeuse’ 
suitable to such an occasion.” —Léon Le Grand, ‘‘ Les Quinze-Vingts.” 


132 


THE CONSTITUTIONS 


prevent contemplation? If voluntary blindness be 
a powerful help to persons with eyesight when they 
unite themselvesto God in prayer, why should blind 
women be unable to form a congregation of contem- 
plativesP With your approbation, Monsignor, I 
will give them my daughters of the Visitation to 
train them in the religious life.” * 

Thus a specially appropriate spiritual and tem- 
poral organization had to be planned. Under such 
circumstances any precipitation would have been 
very imprudent, and could have produced no lasting 
results; time and experience were needed to bring 
the work to perfection. Mother St Paul gradually 
composed her Rule, and accustomed her first daugh- 
ters to it by degrees. Father Petit, a Jesuit, spent a 
great deal of time over the Constitutions and the 
Rule; later on two nuns who held important posts in 
the Visitation convent of the Rue D’Enfer, came, as 
their Superior the Abbé de la Bouillerie had pro- 
mised, to examinethe Rule, and spend several years 
in the convent of the Blind Nuns of St Paul, where 
they inculcated the good traditions of the religious 
life.¢ Hence the Rule is impregnated with the Spirit 
of St Ignatius and St Francis de Sales. Doubtless my 
readers know that all religious rules are derived 
from the two great ones of St Augustine and St 
Benedict. The former is mixed, and applies to both 
active and contemplative orders; the latter is in- 
tended for contemplative orders only, its chief fea- 
ture being separation from the world. St Benedict’s 
rule enjoins perpetual abstinence from flesh meat, 
daily fasts except between Easter and Whitsuntide, 


night offices, etc., etc. St Augustine’s rule enjoins no 


* Extract from a MS. of the Institute of Blind Nuns of St Paul. 
+ Mother Marie-Hyacinthe, Visitation nun, lived at St Paul’s from 1853 
till 1863. 
133 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


special austerities or enclosure, and is adapted to all 
needs. The Rule of the Blind Nuns of St Paul is de- 
rived from St Augustine’s, the Congregation being 
more active than contemplative. We read in the 
Constitutions: ‘‘The aim of this Congregation is to 
work for the glory of God, and the salvation of 
souls, in the exercise of the most entire devotion and 
charity, by admitting to the community young blind 
girls, who can, like those with eyesight, embrace 
the religious life, following the rule and the exer- 
cises, and qualifying themselves for educating the 
blind. Furthermore this Congregation proposes to 
receive as boarders, underrulesfor work and study, 
first, adult blind girls who have no settled homes; 
secondly, to receive little girls from the age of four, 
and to keep them in the home for life, if they desire 
to stay; thirdly, to give a Christian education and 
teach a trade to those young girls with eyesight, 
who will be the companions and guides of the blind; 
fourthly, to receive and wait upon blind ladies, who 
pay a modest sum and choose to board in the con- 
vent, as being a suitable place for them to lead a 
peaceful life with the care needful for their infir- 
mity; fifthly and finally, to undertake in succession 
and in proportion to the means at the disposal of the 
convent, any work conducive to the intellectual, 
physical, and moral well-being of the blind, of what- 
ever age, sex or antecedents.” These last words are 
of the greatest importance; they open up an unlim- 
ited field to the zeal of the Congregation, in every- 
thing regarding the welfare of the blind. The com- 
munity is composed of blind and others, obeying the 
same rule and making the same vows. There are no 
lay sisters, or, to speak correctly, there are no more 


of them. They used to be familiarly called ‘‘ little- 
134 


THE CONSTITUTIONS 


benchssisters,” owing to the dimensions of their 


seats in chapel. All the nuns are of the same rank, 
and wear the same dress. Since 1876, in conformity 
with the wish of Pius [X, when he gave his ‘‘ Brief 
of Approbation,” * it was decided to receive one 
blind nun to two others. The latter must always 
leave anything to help a blind sister, they are always 
together, and in going to the Holy Table a blind nun 
is always accompanied by one who can see. The 
Congregation is governed by a superior with eye- 
sight, elected fora term of six years by the assembled 
community, with option of re-election. She is assist- 
ed by four counsellors of whom one is blind: all are 
chosen among the professed, who have made their 
perpetual vows. Asa rule no postulants under eigh- 
teenoroverthirty-fiveare admitted. Theonly things 
expected of the future nuns are piety, good will, fair 


health, a little talent, and, if possible, a small dowry. 


* Most Eminent and Reverend Lord,—In your letter of March 29 last, 
Your Eminence sets forth that in 1850 there was formed in Paris a pious 
Society of Virgins called the Blind Sisters of St Paul, not only because in 
addition to their own sanctification, they undertake the religious and secular 
education of blind girls, but because they receive blind virgins into their pious 
society. Your Eminence adds, that the blind nuns of this pious society, being 
able to read and chant in choir, as well as employ themselves in feminine oc- 
cupations suitable to their condition, are eligible to profess the simple vows 
of poverty, chastity and obedience, under the authority of a superior, who 
must never be chosen from amongst the blind. Your Eminence further de- 
clares that in spite of obstacles at its commencement, this pious Society has 
already done a deal of good, and that all the sisters, blind and otherwise, most 
fervently wish to persevere in the life they have chosen. Finally, Your Emi- 
nence begs for a recognition from the Holy See, so as to proceed in the affair 
with full security. The undersigned, Secretary of the Holy Congregation of 
Bishops and Regulars, having informed our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX, of all 
that the preceding details, in his audience of April 21, 1876, His Holiness orders 
the above-mentioned Pious Society be proclaimed by these presents, a chari- 
table work deserving of the highest praise, and that your Eminence be recom- 
mended to continue the enterprise with that confidence, prudence and zeal 
for souls, which personally characterize Your Eminence. Having lost no time 
in obeying the orders of our Holy Father, the Pope, I humbly kiss Your Emi- 
nence’s hands, and remain, 

Your very humble and devoted servant, 


CARDINAL FERRIERI 
Rome, April 29, 1876. (Enée Sabaretti, Secretary.) 


Duplicate copy for H. Lagarde, Vicar-General. 
135 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


The postulantsare absolutely free,they merely come 
to ‘‘know and be known.” After the postulantship, 
the novitiate begins with the ceremony of clothing, 
and lasts two years. A retreat of eight days prepares 
the novice for her annual vows, which she renews 
five times. She must be at least one-and-twenty to be 
professed, though profession at first only binds her 
by the year; the sisters admitted to profession must 
solemnly express to the ecclesiastical superior of the 
Congregation, their firm determination to remain 
alltheir lives inthe service of God inthe community. 
After five years of annual vows, sisters can be ad- 
mitted, if they are worthy and desirous, to perpetual 
profession. The rules of the Congregation are prin- 
cipally borrowed from the Society of Jesus: ‘‘Com- 
munity life seems more conformable to the aims of 
the Congregation.” The rule enjoins no austerity or 
special penance, and no fasts beyond those of the 
Church; but any sister can practise any special act of 
mortification which, under the approbation of hersu- 
perior, appears the most likely to further her spiritual 
advancement, or any which the superior may impose 
on her, with the same object. As regards the furni- 
ture of community rooms and cells, food and dress, 
the Superior undertakes that all shall be suitable, 
modest and in accordance with religious poverty. To 
no one whomsoever in the community are any dis- 
tinctions made, exemptions or privileges allowed; 
although high functions, age and long service, may 
entitle certain sisters to the regard and deference of 
others. 

As piety is the source of all real good, the tie 
which binds us to God, the principle of peace and 
order in religious houses, and the only foundation 


capable of upholding them, the sisters will do their 
136 


THE CONSTITUTIONS 


best to acquire it; they will seek first the kingdom 
of God and His righteousness, being assured that 
the rest will not be wanting. The sisters make two 
meditations a day; morning and evening, they sing 
the Office of our Lady, say the Rosary, and hear 
spiritual reading in community; communion is fre- 
quent. A triduum or retreat, prepares them for the 
two feasts of St Paul, when the professed sisters re- 
new their vows. There is no enclosure. With the 
superior’s permission, all the sisters can go out as 
much as is really necessary for the spiritual or 
temporal needs of the community: they can go 
wherever it is useful or suitable for them to be, 
but great discretion is expected on this point. The 
nuns keep silence: they are not supposed to speak 
unless it is necessary except during recreation and 
on Sunday afternoons. From half-past eight in the 
evening till half-past seven next morning (after Mass 
and thanksgiving) they keep perfect silence, that 
is to say that excepting for some absolute necessity 
they do not speak a word; this is known as ‘‘the 
great silence.” In the epistle where St Augustine* 
gives his daughters their rule, we read: ‘‘ Let there 
be nothing sumptuous in your apparel; try to please 
by virtue and not by appearance. Your veils must 
not be so transparent as to show the cap beneath. 
Let your hair be completely hidden: it must neither 
escape in negligence nor be arranged with art.... 
Your garments must be kept in one place, in charge 
of one, two or even more persons, if necessary, to 
keep them clean and free from insects. As your 
food is paid for out of a general fund, so your gar- 
ments mustallbekeptin one robing room. When you 


have to change your habit according to the season, 


* Epistle 109 (211 in the Benedictine Edition). 
137 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


pay as little attention as possible to what is brought 
you, and do not notice whether you have worn the 
garments yourself, or they have belonged to an- 
other; all that matters is that each should have 
what is essential. If any discussions or complaints 
arise amongst you, one sister murmuring at re- 
ceiving a poorer habit than she had before, and 
declaring that she does not deserve to be worse 
clad than others, you will understand how much 
must be wanting of sanctity in the inner garments 
of your souls, if you can pay so great attention to 
the garments of your bodies. Still, if you are so — 
much considered as to have your own garments re- 
turned to you, you ought to put back those you are 
wearing in the same wardrobe, under the charge 
of the same persons: so that none of you may be 
busy with her own concerns, clothes, bed, girdle, 
veil or coif; but let all be done for the community 
with more care and exactitude than as if each of 
you were working for yourself, for charity, it is 
written, ‘seeketh not her own,’ and must be prac- 
tised by putting the wants of others before your 
own.” These injunctions were all followed at St 
Paul’s. After severalessays the costume and the rule 
were settled: the nuns were to wear black habits 
with wide sleeves, over tight ones;* a floating dress 
held in by a cord round the waist, tied with three 
knots representing the three vows of religion, and 
omitted in the novice’s dress; a white headband 
with lappets, a starched white veil worn quite short 
over the forehead, and over that a long black one, 
and on the breast a silver crucifix with a medal, in 
relief, of Our Lady of Consolation. On the right 


side iscarried a copper rosary with six decades, and 


* The sisters who do hard work wear a blue bib and apron, which they leave 
off to go into the chapel or parlour. , 


138 


THE CONSTITUTIONS 


a crucifix in the same metal. Novices wear the 
white veil, and on great occasions it is made of 
nainsook muslin. Sisters who have made perpetual 
vows, wear a silver ring on the fourth finger of 
the left hand. In this costume, blind and normal 
nuns go through life, constantly meditating the 
words of their patron the great Apostle, which are 
the motto of the community: ‘‘For you were here- 
tofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk 
ye as children of the light.” * 

Ceremonies of clothing, and of annual or per- 
petual profession, mark this transition from light to 
darkness; and allusions to that spiritual light which 
is to enlighten and transform the life of the blind 
nuns and the sisters devoted to their care, occur 
frequently in the ritual of these ceremonies. The 
rites and words are especially moving, and take a 
mystic meaning when addressed to such a commun- 
ity. When the habit is received, the celebrant says 
to the postulants, ‘‘My daughters, what do you 
askP” They answer, ‘‘We ask the happiness of 
being admitted as novices into the community of 
Blind Nuns of St Paul.” The celebrant continues, 
‘* Do you promise to practise daily the evangelical 
counsels in the obser vation of communityrules, and 
to be faithful to the duties imposed by the care and 
education of the blind?” After the engagement of 
the postulants, as he blesses the white veil of the 
novices, he says, ‘‘ Vouchsafe to turn Thy servants’ 
eyes from vanity, to love of Thee.” And as he gives 
them the taper: ‘‘Receive, my dear daughter, this 
earthly light as a type of the spiritual light with 
which we pray God to enlighten you, that with the 


* Eph. v, 8. 
139 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


fervour of the Holy Ghost you may some day 
dwell for ever with the Church’s sacred Spouse, 
our Saviour, Jesus Christ.” And he adds, ‘‘Lord 
Jesus Christ, Light of the World, Splendour and 
Glory of the almighty Father, look with favour- 
able eyes upon Thy servants here present, that en- 
lightened by the light of Thy countenance, and in- 
flamed with the fire of Thy love, they may know 
Thy holy will and make it their happiness to obey 
it.” While the novices put on the habit, certain par- 
ticularly applicable verses ofthe psalms are chanted. 
When the novices return, clothed in the religious 
habit, the choir chants : 


Preserve me, O Lord, for I have put my trust in Thee! 
I have said to the Lord, Thou art my God, for Thou hast 
no need of my goods. 

To the saints who are in His land He hath made wonder: 
ful all my desire in them. 

Their infirmities were multiplied : afterwards they made 
haste... The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and 
of my cup; it is Thou that wilt restore my inheritance 
to me. 

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places ; for my 
inheritance is goodly unto me. 

I will bless the Lord who hath given me understanding ; 
moreover, my reins have corrected me even in the night- 
time. 

I set the Lord always in my sight : for He is at my right 
hand that I be not moved. 

Therefore my heart hath been glad, and my tongue hath 
rejoiced, moreover my flesh also shall rest in hope. 

—Psalm xv. 

How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts ! My 
soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of God. 

My heart and my flesh hath rejoiced in the living God. . . 

Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house, O Lord; they 
shall praise Thy name for ever and ever. 

Blessed is the man whose help is from Thee, in his heart 
he hath disposed to ascend by steps in the vale of tears, in 
the place which he hath set.—Psalm Ixxxiil. 

Who is she that goeth up by the desert, flowing with de- 


lights, leaning upon her Pos P 


THE CONSTITUTIONS 


Thou art all fair, O my Love, and comely my dearest, in 
delights. 

Come from Libanus, my spouse, come, thou shalt be 
crowned.—Canticle of Canticles. 


At the annual profession, when the sisters are 
kneeling at the foot of the altar, the celebrant says 
tothem : ‘‘ It is true that it will be very pleasing to 
God, and very good for your souls, for you to live 
and persevere in your holy state of life. You will re- 
ceive the blessing of the Lord, and the mercy of 
God, our Saviour, for of such is the generation of 
them that fear Him, and seek the face of the God 
of Jacob.” Then, joining their hands, the sisters 
offer this touching prayer: ‘‘O Lord God, confirm 
us in this hour, that we may do what we know can 
be done by Thy grace. We come to Thee, O God, 
because Thou hast called us. Receive us according 
to Thy word, and we shall live; Lord, let us not be 
disappointed in our hopes.” Then the choir chants: 
‘* May the Lord have pity on you, and bless you, 
may He look favourably on you, and shew mercy 
unto you. May He direct your steps on earth, that 
you may find the way of His commandments and 
keep without sin.” When the Superior has declared 
that she and the Council desire the sisters to make 
their vows, the celebrant says: ‘‘ If this is your de- 
sire, my dear daughters, come to God, your Crea- 
tor, and be enlightened, and you shall not be con- 
founded. Offer Him the sacrifice of the righteous, 
and He will shew you goodness ” ; and in giving the 
black veil: ‘‘ Receive, my dear daughter, the veil 
of religion. It will be a rampart between you and 
the world’s dangers, and a sign that your heart is 
renewed injustice and truth. May you carry it with- 


- out spot to the judgement-seat of your heavenly 
141 








THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Spouse.” At the perpetual profession the ceremony 
of the funeral pall takes place, after which the cele- 
brant says: ‘‘ Arise, ye that sleep, arise from the 
dead, and Jesus Christ shall give you light.” 

The following dialogue then takes place between 
the Choir and the professed : 

Choir.—The kingdom of this world and its joys I have 
despised for love of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom I have 
seen, loved and chosen, in whom I have believed. 

Prof.—My heart has proffered a joyful word, and I sing 
to the King. 


Choir.—Whom I have seen, etc. (as above). 

Prof.—I have chosen to be despised in the house of my 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

Choir.— Whom I have seen, etc. (as above). 

Prof.—Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the 
Holy Ghost, ete. 


Choir.—Whom I have seen, etc. (as above). 

And, lastly, as the celebrant gives a taper to each 
of the professed, he repeats the last invitation and 
supreme exhortation to the religious life, ‘‘ Walk ye 
in the way of the just, like the shining day-spring, 
striving to grow unto perfection.” 


142 





THE CONVENT 


BOOK II. The Convent 


S we did not stop to go into every detail of 

the founders’ lives, neither shall we dwell 

upon each of the slow but regular stages in 
the development of their work ; we shall merely 
study it in its present form. The convent is now 
situated at no. 88 Rue Denfert-Rochereau ; at the 
right is the Children’s Hospital, at the left and be- 
hind it is the Marie-Thérése Hospital for aged and 
infirm priests. The total area of the buildings, court- 
yard and garden, is 8,000 square metres. There are 
five buildings of varying size, and excepting one 
which contains laundry, community room, noviti- 
ate, and nuns’ dormitory, they have only two floors, 
and are very insignificant-looking. In the centre of 
these is a courtyard, entered by a double gateway, 
and behind stretches a comparatively large garden 
full of fine trees. The house is strikingly clean, neat 
and tidy. ‘‘ A place for everything and everything 
in its place,” was one of the Mother Foundress’s 
favourite maxims; everything is used, cleaned and 
put away with the most scrupulous care. Garden, 
kitchen, laundry, class-rooms, work-rooms, print- 
ing office, all are interesting to investigate, because 
of the very ingenious contrivances which are to be 
met with at every step, for utilizing things and peo- 
ple. The Little Sisters of the Poor are celebrated for 
allowing nothing to be wasted, and for getting good 
out of all the human and inanimate débris cast up 
at their blessed gates ; the Blind Nuns of St Paul, 


though less well known, are equally ingenious. 
143 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


The sting of poverty was felt by them so sharply 
in the beginning of their foundation, that it has be- 
come second nature. To anyone who loves to seek 
beneath the outward appearance of things, for the 
ideas which represent them, it is a pleasure to trace 
the wonderful order that God has established in 
nature, by which nothing is lost. Each living thing, 
each leaf, each grain of dust, after playing its part 
as acomplete whole, disintegrates, and mixes again 
with other living things and inanimate objects. It 
is a pleasure of a like kind to investigate a chari- 
table. institution conducted by nuns having the real 
spirit of poverty. Indeed the process by which 
objects and persons are received, assimilated and 
regenerated is analogous to the transformations of 
Nature. It is quite possible that these holy women 
have never drawn such comparisons, or thought of 
themselves as factors in such elaborate fusion; in 
fact it is certain they have not; but what of that? 
Do the trees, the flowers, the birds, that we love 
and admire more for their beauty than their utility, 
understand their part in the great scheme of things? 
Their rdle in Nature is the same as that of the dear 
Sisters in the world; they too play their part 
simply, doing good instead of theorizing, as un- 
conscious as the birds and flowers of the social 
transformations which they effect, and we profit by. 


144 


MATERIAL OCCUPATIONS 


@, 1. Material Occupations 


N each branch of work or service, to use con- 
| Fee language, blind or nearly blind girls 

with varying sight are judiciously interspersed 
with others who can see; all doing the principal 
parts of the printing. The blind are utilized at St 
Paul’s on principle, and of necessity; on principle 
they are employed everywhere, and in every way 
that is not absolutely impossible; and of necessity, 
because there are not enough nuns who can see for 
all the work. Furthermore it is always a good thing, 
as the founders of all the orders well knew, to en- 
force moral obligations by real, tangible necessity. 
As we have seen, when the founders of St Paul 
started they had very little experience of the blind, 
and though most charitably desirous of helping 
them, were rather distrustful of their skill, and 
thought them incapable of many things which ex- 
perience has since proved can be done withoutsight. 
It was therefore even more from necessity than 
logic, that by degrees they confided certain work 
or portions of work to the blind; and it is quite 
certain that fresh possibilities will continue to be 
discovered in this direction, as time goes on. During 
the first years blind nuns were set to teach prayers 
to sisters who could see but were uneducated, while 
the latter were employed in housework or sewing. 
They played the part of piously edifying phono- 
_ graphs, but it shews how little was known then of 
the capabilities of the blind; nowadays most of 


the blind nuns have every moment of their time so 
145 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


completely filled up, that they certainly could not 
spare any to sit with novices and be so passively 
employed. The great achievement of any organizer 
is to get as much as he can out of a man or a piece 
of money; in a convent this is imperative, and if 
persons or objects are not placed where they will 
give their maximum returns, there will always bea 
want of balance and a sense of incompleteness in 
people and things. 


The large three-cornered garden is bordered on 
each side by wide paths and fine trees, and the nuns 


andchildrentaketheir recreation there. The middle 
is all vegetables, looked after by a hardy Auver- 
gnatesister;she camefrom Auvergne when the con- 
vent was first started, and can weed and water as 
well as any man, despite her sixty years. In summer 
she is at work from three or four in the morning 
until nightfall, and seldom leaves her precincts; she 
says her prayers all the time she is raking, weeding, 
and carting away the specially unpleasant manure 
in awheelbarrow! .. . Utility and economy reign 
hereas elsewhere; nothing is wasted that is obtained 
from the farm, where fowls, goats, cows, pigs and 
rabbits are kept and no manure or vegetable com- 
post is bought. Soeur Marie-Julie has assistants 
with weak sight or none, who help her to pull up 
weeds in the lettuce patch. Digging and watering 
do not require very good eyesight, nor indeed sight 
atall, if the person employed is allowed to go slowly, 
and her allotted task is inspected when finished. A 
blind woman milks the goats, feeds the rabbits, 
etc., etc. Honest country girls who used formerly 
to do this all by eyesight and who have nearly or 
entirely lost it are thus employed in a way thor- 


oughly suitable to their tastes and aptitudes; what 
146 


MATERIAL OCCUPATIONS 


they could not do amongst strangers on a large 
estate, they can manage quite comfortably on this 
limited plot of ground, surrounded by well-disposed 
persons who overlook their work, not to criticize 
it unkindly, but to point out, if necessary, what has 
to be gone over a second time. 

Soeur Marie-Julie’s domain supplies fresh eggs, 
‘choice vegetables and fruit, not to the whole com- 
munity by any means; but to the infirmary and the 
lady-boarders all the year round. Nothing is wasted 
in the kitchen either. I really believe that each 
utensil and piece of furniture has it pedigree. For 
instance, in a corner of the larder, lettuces and 
cabbages are kept in two gigantic stands made out 
of old soap and candle boxes given by a friendly 
grocer. The sisters have put them on four legs, 
after piercing the lower parts like a coarsecolander, 
so that the air can penetrate and moisture drip 
through. Near by stands a table that is made from 
the ruins of an old square piano. The sisters who 
make soup can see, but all accessory work such as 
grinding coffee, cutting bread, etc., is performed by 
the blind; and naturally it is the latter who wash 
and drycrockery in the scullery and kitchen, where 
platesare piled up as they come out of the refectory. 
‘This underground pantry is not a palatial apart- 
ment, but it contains a statue of Our Lady on a 
bracket, flanked by two little vases which all 
through May, the month of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary, are kept filled with flowers, and many rosa- 
ries are said whilst the washing-up goes on. Good 
humour reigns there as everywhere else, and there 
is great animation on feast days, when the menu is 
more plentiful, and the scullery and kitchen busier: 


the sisters from other departments, who are off 
147 10 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


duty on those days, delight in coming down into 
the kitchen, where they borrow large aprons and 
help the cooks. Thus the class-room and printing- 
room nuns, that is to say the most intellectual in 
the whole community, come on days like Easter 
and Ascension with the greatest cheerfulness and 
good fellowship to help their working sisters. Love 
and faith will transfigure the meanest work; it is 
related of a certain St Bridget of holy memory, a 
refined and lovable creature, that when she was 
employed in the kitchen she took to herself the 
words of Martha to Mary, ‘‘The Master is there 
and hath need of thee.” When she was constantly 
called from her work by first one and then another, 
she would say to herself each time: ‘‘The Master 
hath need of thee,” and would obey with the same 
joyful alacrity as if her Divine Lover had called 
her. [s this not the secret of the ever-radiant faces 
and the pervading peace which are the portion of 
nuns? They always impress us, however humble 
their exterior. Amongst persons who speak of con- 
vents without knowing much about them, it is the 
general custom to repeat that communities delight 
in employing well-educated and intellectual people 
in cooking, sweeping, etc., etc., in order to mortify 
and humiliate nature. This is rather an absurd idea; 
doubtless it sometimes happens that, either to fill a 
momentary vacancy or to test a disposition, nuns 
may be sent to the kitchen, the laundry or the 
farm who are fitted for something much higher, 
butit would be a great mistake to imagine a superior 
taking a delight in reversing tasks, without some 
serious reason; as a rule such cases are accidental 
and temporary. Superiors who are so careful that 


‘everything shall paves place, and be kept in 


MATERIAL OCCUPATIONS 


it,” are still more anxious that each individual 
shall be placed where his or her aptitude and talents 
can be employed to the best advantage. But if a 
sudden vacancy occurs, and some outwardly humble 
occupation has to be reorganized and started afresh, 
it is quite possible that a nun who has been destined 
for much higher things may be asked to fill the gap; 
it is for her to understand and love her task, and 
submit herself to a provisional arrangement which 
at the time she may even believe to be permanent. 
In the first place it is her duty to obey; then, since 
nothing is so valuable as personal experience, it 
may be very useful to her to gain practical know- 
ledge, and perform with her own hands those tasks 
which she may have one day to direct, and, last but 
not least, our daily happiness ought not to depend 
upon whether we are washing-up crockery or teach- 
ing literature, managing a farm or instructing no- 
vices, the sole and real importance of life consists 
in having an aim and an ideal which we do our best 
to realize. 

Carlyle’s wife, obliged by circumstances, and 
still more by her husband’s vile temper, to bake 
the great man’s bread when she could have writ- 
ten books, writes half whimsically: ‘‘It was then 
that somehow the idea of Benvenuti Cellini sit- 
ting up all night watching his Perseus in the fur- 
nace came into my head, and suddenly I asked 
myself: ‘After all, in the sight of the upper powers, 
what is the mighty difference between a statue of 
Perseus and a loaf of bread, so that each be the 
thing one’s hand has found to doP The man’s de- 
termined will, his energy, his patience, his resource 
were the really admirable things of which his 


statue of Perseus was the mere chance expression. 
449 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


If he had been a woman living at Craigenputtock 
with a dyspeptic husband sixteen miles from a 
baker, and he a bad one, all these same qualities 
would have come out more fitly in a good loaf of 
bread.’”* And the female philosopher who quotes 
Mrs Carlyle, adds these words: ‘‘ How much talent 
is wasted, how many enthusiasms vanish into 
air, how many lives are spoilt for want of a 
little patience and resignation, or because we 
have not understood that it is not the grandeur 
or littleness of our tasks which make them noble 
or trivial, but the spirit in which we accomplish 
them.” 

Yes, happiness is subjective and not objective: 
it depends, not upon our surroundings, but on our 
own disposition. Perhaps the dear sisters them- 
selves would not understand this rather pedantic 
axiom; but what is far better, they realize the 
meaning of those verses from ‘‘The Imitation,” 
which put the same thing into different words: 

‘*The Cross, therefore, is always ready, and 
everywhere awaiteth thee. Thou canst not escape 
it whithersoever thou runnest; for wheresoever 
thou goest, thou carriest thyself with thee, and 
shalt always find thyself. Turn thyself upward, 
or turn thyself downward; turn thyself inward or 
turn thyself outward; everywhere shalt thou find 
the cross. And everywhere thou must of necessity 
hold fast patience, if thou desirest inward peace 
and wouldst merit an eternal crown.” 

It is indeed folly to be for ever seeking different 
occupations in the hope of finding happiness. It is 
true wisdom to obey the superior, to bow to those 


* Miss Jewsbury’s ‘‘ Recollections of Mrs Carlyle,” quoted by Arvéde 
Barine in ‘‘ Portraits de Femmes” (La femme d’un grand homme). 
150 


MATERIAL OCCUPATIONS 


circumstances which are the ‘‘superiors” of every 
one, and manifestations of Providence, and to make 
ourselves happy in whatever ‘‘department” the 
Great Overseer has placed us during this life. 
People living in the world rebel and revolt, because 
they are too apt to forget that an infinitely good 
and powerful ‘‘Superior” watches over us: but 
in the convent, a nun feels that her ‘‘Reverend 
Mother” is close beside her; she knows that her 
superior is in the place of God, and that she is as 
affectionate and careful over a cooking nun, as 
over one who is preparing girls for an examination, 
because the same motive guides both: they are 
working out their own salvation whilst serving 
others in soul and body. When once women have in 
all sincerity consecrated their poor life to Jesus and 
to their neighbour, and have given up their own will 
to their superior in the hope of being more useful to 
their fellow-creatures, when they have realized that 
they have complete control over their time and 
their faculties and that they accept this responsibi- 
lity, they may rest in peace. It is therefore with 
hearty and joyful alacrity that they throw them- 
selves into the ‘‘employment of the moment,” 
knowing and feeling that every action is trans- 
formed and idealized according to the spirit in 
which it is undertaken, and that when duty points 
the way, watching a loaf of bread baking is as soul- 
satisfying as waiting for the clay of a Sévres or 
Tanagra statuette to harden. 

A blind nun is told off to carry the meals to the 
lady-boarders and infirmary patients; plates ready 
filled and bowls of soup are placed on trays, the 
whole is covered by a napkin, and the waitress 
settles the tray firmly on her left arm, leaving her 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


right hand free to open doors. A great many 
doors, staircases and courtyards have to be passed 
on the way from the basement kitchen to the lady- 
boarders’ wing, the distance is too great, and in 
winter the dishes must arrive almost cold. But in 
spite of distance, winding stairs, doorsteps and turn- 
ings, the blind waitress never upsets her tray, how- 
ever quickly she walks. It is needless to say that 
she knows her way perfectly all over the house; 
with her foot she calculates the exact distance from 
door to stair, every worn paving stone and pro- 
jecting step, each angle in the courtyard walls, are 
so many landmarks which spare her the least falter- 
ing or hesitation. It is also a blind nun who fills with 
hot water the collection of jugs which she after- 
wardscarries to the refectoriesand boarders’ dining- 
room, for the washing-up. She cleans and polishes 
the cans of beer, which is brewed in the convent 
from a treasured recipe; she takes them to the 
refectory, and hands them over to a blind but 
equally handy colleague, who lays the places on the 
long row of tables. The latter carries a heavy pile of 
plates on her left arm, and with great precision 
places them with her right hand at each person’s 
place, afterwards filling the little pitchers belonging 
to the different tables, from the large jugs of beer 
that stand in a corner of the room. Liquid falling 
into a rather shallow receptacle produces a very 
distinct sound, which varies in tone as the liquid 
rises; every one knows this, but people who can see 
pay no attention to it, as they can measure con- 
veniently with the eye: the blind waitress is guided 
by this sound, and unless her attention is wilfully 
allowed to wander, she never spills any of the beer. 


After each meal she removes the plates, wipes 
152 


MATERIAL OCCUPATIONS 


the tables, etc. All over the house the blind dust 
furniture, clean windows and sweep stairs; the 
cleaning of the large staircases is the only thing done 
by a woman with sight, because people pass con- 
stantly over it during the sweeping, and brush the 
dust from one side to another, which would render 
the blind woman’s task as unending as Penelope’s. 
Long distances and long-handled utensils are very 
confusing to blind workers. There is little to guide 
them in a plain surface, and a blind woman will 
always prefer a broom, spade or saucepan, with a 
short handle, so that her hand being as near as 
possible to the working end of the utensil, she can 
have full command over ‘it. Blind women clean 
stairs with a brush without a handle, which they 
hold by the wooden back. Their methods are 
simple; beginning at the top, they sweep kneeling 
down: they hold the dustpan in the left hand, placing 
it at right angles to the wall exactly above the step 
they are at work upon, and sweep regularly from 
banister to wall, as they gradually reach the bottom. 
Brooms in the form of gigantic nail-brushes with 
straight handles have been tried, but the handless 
broom is always preferred. ‘‘ We get a better grip of 
it” (‘*Onl’a mieux dans la main.”) After the broom 
comes the duster, but the process of dusting is 
naturally much slower for the blind than for others. 
Nearly a minute is spent over each tread, for natu- 
rally when the hand is not controlled by the eye, 
it does not move so quickly. Hence it is impossible 
to recommend the blind to go out for the day as 
charwomen in houses which are unfamiliar to them, 
but in their homes, or as we have seen in the con- 
vent, handy, active, blind women can get through 


a good deal of work. In fact, if they are very inge- 
* 183 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


nious, there are few things which they find it really 
impossible to do. 

At St Paul’s cleanliness equals economy, which 
is no light thing to say. . . Linen being constantly 
changed, washing is considerable, and is all done 
in the house as the blind can be largely employed 
in it. For the last few years the convent has pos- 
sessed a modernized laundry with steam machinery, 
etc. On Tuesday, which is washing day, Soeur 
Marie-Geneviéve, who is not blind, lights the fires 
and prepares everything ; she is in charge of the 
machinery, and never leaves her post. She regu- 
lates the pressure, sending great jets of steam into 
the large copper full of linen and into the different 
compartments of the laundry, where a squadron of 
blind and half-blind women rinse the linen after it 
has boiled in the copper and been soaked in a me- 
chanically drained receptacle. The blind also wring 
out all the pieces which have been through clean 
water ; they heap them on to little trucks, and then 
blind and half-blind join in wheeling them to the 
garden, where the linen is dried in fine weather, or 
to the drying-room in wet or wintry days. Eye- 
sight is not necessary in spreading articles out to 
dry: the baskets of wet linenare ready on the trucks 
and nothing is easier than to take up a piece, shake 
and spread it on the line which hangs across the 
path from one end to the other. The drying-women 
know the geography of the garden by heart, their 
infirmity is no hindrance to them in walking along 
even rows of hanging linen, and at this work they 
can even, toa great extent, conquer their slowness. 
Only women with eyesight are employed to mend 
or make new linen articles, and to take care of 


clothes in general. But some of the blind can 
154 


MATERIAL OCCUPATIONS 


sew, especially those who have lost their sight as 
adults after being very good needlewomen: the 
latter keep up their needlework whether in mend- 
ing or making new. Special needles are to be had 
with very large eyes which allow of the thread 
passing quite easily, but blind people can sew with 
ordinary ones by using their lips and tongue. The 
thread is held in the right, and the needle in the 
left hand ; tongue and lips discover the exact place 
of the eye, then the right hand introduces the 
thread which the lips draw through by suction, and 
the same hand receives the thread when it has 
passed. In this, as in all other work, habit gives. 
skill to the blind. 

~~ kitchen sistér whose sight has gradually gone 
has a curious employment : she makes out of cut- 
tings of cloth excellent slippers which are called 
by the apt name of ‘‘silence-shoes.” The sole is 
composed of seven or eight thicknesses of cloth one 
over the other ; these the sister stabs with a long 
stout needle, in very close stitches, so that they 
make one substance. It was in the large community 
room that I first found this humble sister on a hot 
June day working at her ‘‘ silence-shoes.” She ex- 
plained her little industry and gave me“fer short 
biography with the simplicity of a nun and the 
gentle sadness of one who is resigned, but not yet 
accustomed, to recent blindness. The sun streamed 
through the large west windows, she could no 
longer see it, but something of its warmth and 
brilliance seemed to cheer her, and fill her with 
reflected life, strength and contentment. 


. 155 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


G, II. The Community Room. The Chapel 


| N a convent the community room is of special 
 inverstce Next to the chapel it is the nuns’ 
favourite place—they take a pride in it as their 
true home and the centre of all the family life they 
can ever know. In the dormitory or her own 
cell a nun merely has her bed, she only spends 
there the time strictly necessary for sleep, and never 
returns during the day; the refectory is still less of 
an abiding place, and the department where a nun 
works is not always her favourite spot; sometimes 
the space is very limited, and when it happens to 
be the wash-house or the cellar, it cannot be con- 
sidered pleasant, and she is merely sent there to 
work. The community room is open all day; and 
all the sisters make it a rendezvous. In very severe 
orders it is the only room with a fire, and from 
time to time the nuns go there to warm themselves. 
Nuns go to the community room for recreation 
when bad weather keeps them from the garden; 
it is there that they hear spiritual reading, and 
and some kind of instruction, and go whenever they 
have a free moment. Each sister keeps her little 
box containing her work and writing materials 
there; in fact it is her home. As it does not belong 
to her personally, and as she has not the right to 
own anything, she may become attached to the 
community room with her whole heart, and even. 
embellish it, as being the property of the Congre- 
gation as a whole; and this without disobeying the 


rule of ‘‘holy poverty.” 
156 


THE COMMUNITY ROOM 


At St Paul’s the community room is very spaci- 
ous and holds a hundred nuns comfortably; it is 
ventilated by large windows through which those 
nuns who are not blind can see in the distance the 
Sacred Heart Basilica of Montmartre towering 
over Paris. The parquet floor is carefully waxed, 
it is pleasant to the eye and very comfortable 
to the feet of the blind people who like shiny, 
even surfaces, on which they can easily detect the 
slightest speck of dust or mud. Chairs stand all 
round the room in front of the cases or cupboards 
where each nun keeps her work and her tools, or 
rather the tools she uses, as nothing, strictly speak- 
ing, belongstoher personally. Here the daily reading 
takes place, during which all the nuns are busy at 
some mechanical employment, such as trimming 
vegetables or cutting up bread for soup. Before 
sitting down to the reading, several sisters go to 
the kitchen for large baskets of beans, lentils, po- 
tatoes, carrots, bread, etc., which they carry up 
two by two. Near the community room is a 
lavatory where they carefully wash their hands, 
after which blind and others silently commence 
their work. Those who can see usually sew. On 
Wednesdays there is the sorting and folding of the 
linen washed the day before, which is piled up ina 
closet, from which each sister, as she passes, takes 
out an armful to fold. The community room must 
really be an interesting sight when the sixty blind 
andnormalsistersare grouped round the little pulpit 
which the Superior occupies while she reads aloud. 
Some are sewing, others sorting lentils, others 
peeling potatoes, cutting bread, folding linen, etc., 
while the sister who directs the printing, sits on the 
pulpit steps, folding large sheets of paper and fast- 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


ening them together in book form. The blind being 
interspersed among the others, the latter can over- 
look the work in case of need, but this is seldom 
required, for it is not necessary even to have a very 
fine sense of touch to pare vegetables and see that 
no peel or skin remains behind. Great attention to 
details is the secret of the nun’s success; she works 
conscientiously, believing that He of whom it was 
said, ‘‘ He did all things well,” will not leave the 
smallest action unrewarded which she has done 
with all her heart for love of Him. A large statue 
of Our Lady, and two full-length pictures of Mother 
St Paul and Abbé Juge, adorn the community room 
like portraits of ancestors; each new-comer is told 
their name, their history and their achievements, 
the lives of the founders are related in their smallest 
details, as examples to love and imitate. 

There is a great charm about the young girl of 
eighteen who comes with unimpaired powers of 
loving, making a free gift of herself to the religious 
family she is entering; she is affectionately received 
for her own sake, for she is often charming, en- 
thusiastic, loving and full of good will, and because 
she is yet another ‘‘sister” or ‘‘child” sent by God 
to the community family. ... Above all, the nuns 
feel a mystic, supernatural joy in her coming, they 
see in her one of the elect, chosen and called by the 
Lord, who has shown her the goal from the be- 
ginning of her life’s journey. A chapel and a com- 
munity are the real foundations of a convent. In the 
chapel a nun at any moment can find her Master, 
to whom she has given all her heart and life; He is 
ever present to hear her thanksgivings or her com- 
plaints, to fortify and comfort her by those words 
which he speaks to her cout, bringing it the only 


THE COMMUNITY ROOM 


real and efficacious consolation. She finds in the 
community room, the human influence which cor- 
responds to a woman’s innate longing for family 
life; the community family is never dispersed, nor 
entirely dissolved by death; time cannot affect it 
since it is constantly growing, and its youth is 
perpetually renewed in the person of each fresh 
novice who enters. 

If the community room of a convent is so im- 
portant, the chapel is still more beloved and em- 
bellished. There, indeed, is concentrated all the 
supernatural life of the soul, and as the actions of 
each nun, be she young or old, cultivated or igno- 
rant, are regulated by this supernatural life, it is 
not too much to say that the chapel is really and 
truly the centre of the convent’s vital principle. 
Sometimes a community will incur debt to get an 
imposing building, sacrificing everything to its 
decorations, and this to the great scandal of people 
living in the world who forget our Lord’s words 
tojHis disciples: ‘‘ Why do you trouble this wo- 
man? For she hath wrought a good work upon 
Me.” But if the Master checked those who had re- 
buked the Magdalene for breaking the alabaster 
box and pouring the spikenard over His feet, say- 
ing that all posterity would praise her for so doing, 
He did not command us to imitate her, nor say, as 
in the parable of the Good Samaritan, ‘‘Go ye 
and do likewise.” Hence many great servants of 
God, such as St Francis of Assisi and St Vincent 
de Paul, felt justified in placing the tabernacle on 
altars and in sanctuaries of such extreme poverty 
as to recall the stable of Bethlehem rather than 
the house of Simon the Pharisee, or the guest 


chamber of the Last Supper. It is related of St 
59 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Francis that, when he heard of a poor old woman 
being cold and hungry, when there was nothing 
left in the convent but the choir psalter, he said : 
‘*Give her the book, God will be more pleased 
with the good we shall do her than with our choir- 
singing.”” At St Paul’s they remember this pretty 
story fromthe ‘‘ Fioretti,” and every time any money 
is sent, one more blind child is admitted and offered 
to the God of the poor. This is the reason that the 
chapel, though not so bare as the Portiuncula of 
Assisi, resembles it more than it does the Abbey 
of Fontevrault. The chapel is dedicated to the 
Blessed Virgin under the title of ‘‘Our Lady of 
Consolation,” in honour of an Italian pilgrimage 
which the Abbé Juge loved to make. It stands on 
the grounds of the humble house occupied by the 
author of ‘‘ Le Génie du Christianisme ” ; Mme 
Chateaubriand’s drawing-room is part of the choir. 
The famous author’s memory is held in great hon- 
our, visitors hear a great deal about him, and are 
shewn what used to be the bedroom of his venera- 
ted wife. In 1860 it was necessary, in enlarging the 
chapel, to cut down a magnificent cedar tree 
under whose shadow the community, when in its 
infancy, used to assemble : this cedar is said to have 
been brought back and planted by Chateaubriand 
on his return from the Holy Land ; its wood was 
used to make choir-stalls. But the enlargements 
were made forty years ago, and since then the 
community has greatly increased. There is a great 
crowd round the tabernacle on the days when nuns 
take the veil or a First Communion is made, and, 
as relations must be admitted, the congregation 
overflows almost into the courtyard. The nuns 


are seated in small stalls, each blind sister alterna- 
160 


THE COMMUNITY ROOM 


ting with another. They go to the Holy Table in the 
same order, and the nuns who have no blind to lead 
follow after by themselves. Children and young girls 
sit on the benches. A nun with partial eyesight 
sits at the end of each row to marshal the ranks, 
and the children, who sit hand in hand, are most 
orderly. For blind people who are devout chapels 
are far preferable to large churches, for in the for- 
mer they can hear the priest’s words at the altar, 
which is impossible when a large nave separates 
them. And how is it possible to follow Low Mass 
by the ear, when it is celebrated at the high altar P 
All is intended for sight, and hardly anything for 
hearing. It is true that the bell announces the 
Sanctus, the Consecration, the two Elevations and 
the Communion. The noise made by the faithful 
on rising for the Gospel and sitting down at the 
Offertory, indicates these two parts of worship ; 
but that is all, and it is not enough. In a silent 
chapel it is possible not to lose one word of what 
the priest says out loud, and when he is praying in 
a low voice, if his movements cannot be seen, a few 
words may be caught : sometimes the server can 
be heard moving the Missal, or taking up the 
cruets, the priest pouring water or wine into the 
chalice at the Offertory or making the last ablu- 
tions. Sometimes even the priest’s genuflexions, the 
fluttering of the leaves of the Missal, the breaking 
of the Sacred Host, the placing of the pall on the 
chalice, etc., are audible. 

Under such conditions, when familiar with the 
liturgy, it is quite possible to follow the celebrant 
minutely, and thus the attention is riveted and 
sustained. Recollection, too, is easier in a secluded 


chapel, where there is no disturbance of people 
161 il 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


coming and going as they constantly do in large 
churches, especially on Sunday mornings: not to 
speak of Sanctus bells ringing at side altars, bap- 
tisms, funerals, catechism, the commotion of chairs 
being moved, beadles whispering and the faithful 
entering and leaving. People with eyesight find it 
easy to shut out noise; they look at the altar, con- 
centrate their attention on what they see, and 
abstract themselves from all outer sounds. Hearing 
is a great cause of distraction to the blind, they are 
even less disturbed by a great deal of movement 
going onaround them; people canclose their eyes, but 
not stop their ears; by keeping perfectly still they only 
see what is immediately in front of them whereas 
sounds can reach them fromevery side; they may not 
be listening, but it is impossible not to hear. Hence 
blind girls prefer peaceful, silent chapels; silence 
represents to them something like the impression 
produced by the half-light which filters through 
church windows. From time to time, distant sounds 
penetrate from outside, but not distinctly enough 
to be disturbing; they only seem, as it were, an echo 
of that outer world which has been left behind for 
afew moments. On great feast days in summer the 
blind delight in the flowers which dress the altar 
and sanctuary and perfume their chapel; and when 
clouds of incense fill the air while triumphal hymns 
are sung by the whole congregation, they feel them- 
selves plunged into an atmosphere of happiness and 
mystic joy. They love their dear chapel too, when 
coming back at the close of a feast-day to look for 
a book or make a short adoration, they find it 
warm from the flame of tapers, impregnated with 
incense, and as if still thrilling with the chants 


that have just ended. If we have the patience or 
162 


THE COMMUNITY ROOM 


devotion to spend a little time in a corner of St 
Paul’s chapel, we shall see many interesting types 
of blind women: sometimes a sister enters by the 
nuns’ door; she walks quickly and unhesitatingly to 
her little stall: sometimes an old womandressed as a 
‘*‘lady” comes in very slowly and almost on tip-toe, 
with much hesitation and faltering, keeping close to 
the wall so as not to lose her way, and touching 
each row of chairs to count them and discover when 
she reaches herownseat. This will bealady-boarder, 
who has recently lost her sight; inher own home she 
would not have ventured out of her room or down- 
stairs without a guide. Here, example has embold- 
ened her, she knows that she is surrounded by other 
blind people who make every allowance for her 
and are kind instead of critical; she does not feel 
set apart, she has taken confidence and tried her 
best (‘‘essayé de pouvoir”) and has succeeded; 
each day she has made a little progress and has 
gradually recovered more and more independence. 
The next moment another blind woman enters, 
also dressed with a certain amount of care; she 
walks quite steadily if slowly, and finds her place 
without feeling for it; she is an organist and teacher 
of music who, brought up in a blind school, has re- 
tired to St Paul’s after forty years of work; she pays 
for her board out of the little income which her 
savings produce and the few hundreds of francs 
left her by her parents. Later a group of young 
girls come in together to pay their visit to the 
Blessed Sacrament; these also are quite unembar- 
rassed and walk with great precision; they are 
Children of Mary, and have been for some time in 
the house. Finally, an old blind nun quietly enters, 


leading a very young blind child, almost a baby, to 
163 Ila 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


pray to the Infant Jesus, and she teaches her how 
to make the sign of the Cross. On Feast days, when 
the Church exultantly invites the faithful to form 
out-of-door processions as a manifestation of their 
faith in the Blessed Sacrament or their devotion 
to our Lady, and leads them through city streets 
and village roads decorated for the occasion, the 
family of St Paul’s refuses to be behindhand. Pro- 
cessions in honour of Corpus Christi, the Assump- 
tion and the Rosary are specially dear to the 
Community. They take place in the garden, under 
the avenues of lime trees, and on Corpus Christi 
a humble Altar of Repose is erected at the far end 
of the garden. Little children, students, work-girls, 
Children of Mary, lady-boarders, blind and normal 


nuns march along singing: 

This is day which the Lord hath made; let us be glad and 
rejoice therein. 

O Lord, save me, O Lord, give good success. 

Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord. We 
have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. The Lord is 
God, and He hath shone upon us.—Psalm cxvii. 
and 

Jesus, whom for the present veiled I see, 
What I so thirst for, oh, vouchsafe to me, 
That I may see Thy countenance unfolding, 
And may be blest Thy glory in beholding.* 

Each section is headed by its banner. The one of 
St Joseph, under which all the work-girls are as- 
sembled, recalls a sad memory. On the banner staff 
is inscribed: ‘* To Sister Mary Magdalen, from the 
Valentin Haiity Association for the Welfare of the 
Blind, May4, 1897.” Dear Sister Mary Magdalen was 
one of the victims of the Bazar de la Charité, and had 
charge of the apprentices and work-girls, to whom 
she was perfectly devoted; this section was placed 


** Adoro Te.” 
164 


THE COMMUNITY ROOM 


under the protection of St Joseph, but they had no 
banner, and Sister Mary Magdalen had set her 
heart on getting one. After the catastrophe the 
Valentin Haiiy Association,* in accordance with 
the rule of the Community, placed no wreath on 
the holy victim’s coffin, but gave a durable and 
tangible memento to be preserved among her work- 
girls in memory of the dear dead nun. On feast days 
devout ardour must light up all thesesightless faces, 
for it surely fills their hearts. Sometimes a shade of 
sadness comes across them. May not some blind 
sister, as she sings under the lime trees of Chateau- 
briand’s garden, remember the beautiful Corpus 
Christi feasts of her childhood when she was a 
pretty black-eyed child? Dressed in white under her 
big muslin veil, far, far away, in her Southern vil- 
lage home, she followed solemn processions under 
the plane trees, while the tall Sodality girls whom 
she envied, sang Lambillotte’s ‘‘Lauda Sion,” so 
beautiful to her childish ears. She must ‘‘see” it all 
yet in the brilliant colours of her imagination and 
the romance of distance; the town decked for the 
holiday, houses festooned with white, Altars of 
Repose covered with the most precious treasures 
the people possessed, carpets, curtains, lace, vases, 
baskets of flowers, lustres and silver and gold 
candelabra. The June morning is warm, and the 
sun already blazing, but the trees give a cool shade. 
The great bell rings, the lesser ones sound a peal, 
the air is full of festal sounds. A light, tiny breeze 
just stirs the leaves, enough to make them rustle, 
and wafts from the big garden yonder the scent of 
orange blossom, pink oleander and verbena. The 


*See chapters on brush-making and printing for the connexion between the 
Blind Nuns of St Paul and the Valentin Haiiy Association for the Welfare 
of the Blind. 

165 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


procession is in sight; the tapers are hurriedly 
lighted, the Blessed Sacrament is coming, and the 
birds sing in the highest branches of the plane trees 
the same songs they sang in the plane trees of Judea. 
Instead of keeping silence, they join in the chant 
of the ‘*‘ Pange Lingua.” On the lace-draped altar 
the monstrance is placed for a few moments on a 
red velvet pedestal covered with sparkling jewels, 
there in the open air, under the arching branches 
of the great trees. The white-haired priest is kneel- 
ing on the altar steps, and all round him a crowd 
of white-surpliced, red-cassocked choir boys, hold- 
ing baskets of roses and golden thuribles, strew 
flowers as they incense the Blessed Sacrament. She 
is too young to belong to a sodality, but not too 
young for deep feelings or to wish with her whole 
heart to consecrate herself to the Lord Jesus, and 
still naive enough to say her wish out loud. Years 
have slipped quickly by, they say the processions 
under the plane trees are less gorgeous than of old; 
and the little girl in the beautiful white dress, whose 
brilliant black eyes were hidden under her white 
veil, has become a nun, a blind nun. Her childish 
vow has been fulfilled: the Lord Jesus has taken 
her entirely to Himself, only leaving her the mem- 
ory of the past. 


166 


THE CLASSES 


@, III The Classes 


HE time has long since gone by when the 

blind were received at St Paul’s merely 

to give them a home, and with no idea 
of setting a definite aim before each one. Now, the 
greatest care is taken to educate every child or 
young girl in the way that will best bring out her ap- 
titudes. Blind women of all ages are received, from 
children of three to septuagenarians. But though in- 
mates of all ages are under the same roof, they do 
not clash with each other; and in spite of the small- 
ness of the buildings, it has been cleverly arranged 
that different categories of boarders shall take their 
turn to occupy the garden or refectory. It is a gene- 
ral rule everywhere that children shall not mix 
with adults, and in this case it is even more neces- 
sary to separate those who have led, or are to lead, 
different kinds of lives. There are five distinct cate- 
gories in the establishment: 

1. Children from three to eleven. 

2. ‘*Big” girls or students. 

3. Children of Mary, workwomen of all ages who 
are employed in the work-room and will spend 
their lives there. 

4, Lady-boarders (in the ‘‘Home”), and 

5. Brush-makers, apprentices and workwomen 
of all ages(an industry created by the Valentin Haiiy 


Association).* 


* The Valentin Hatiy Association for the Welfare of the Blind was founded 
in 1889, and recognized as being of public utility in 1891. The Association will 
take up, as far as its still very limited resources permit, the case of any blind 
person indicated, be he child, apprentice, workman, aged or infirm; it assisted 
more than sixteen hundred in 1900. Its two offices are in Paris at 31 Avenue 
de Breteuil. _ 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


If my readers remember that in addition to all 
these there is a class of young girls whose sight is 
not strong enough for them to go to any school or 
ordinary work-room, and who are not blind enough 
to go into a Blind Institute, they will realize that the 
whole establishment is very varied and interesting. 

There are some Blind Schools, not of the highest 
class, who in their anxiety for municipal, depart- 
mental or government favour, catch the ‘‘certifi- 
cate mania.” To those people who know nothing of 
the blind question, as is the case with most town 
councillors, generals, deputies, senators, mayors and 
prefects, the enumeration of a few certificates and 
honourable mentions obtained is a manifest and un- 
disputed sign of the superiority of a school. This is 
an error. The object of schools for the blind is to 
render the pupils as competent as possible to gain 
their own living; and dependence on certificates, 
precarious enough for those who can see, is abso- 
lutely useless for the blind. During the last sixty- 
five years, one hundred and twenty blind have 
obtained certificates or university diplomas, and 
deducting those who have become teachers in 
blind schools, I do not know of a single person 
whose certificate was of any use to him in his 
profession. The Blind Nuns of St Paul, who 
neither receive any departmental or municipal fa- 
vours, very wisely subordinate intellectual to tech- 
nical education; and this does not hinder them from 
~successfully coaching an occasional pupil for certi- 
ficates, when aptitude and circumstances permit. 
Five have already obtained them. Two rooms, quite 
large enough for the pupils, who only number forty, 
suffice for intellectual studies, and are successively 
used for classes and preparation, space, like all else, 








THE CLASSES 


having to be economized. The Junior Class takes in 
little girls from three to eleven, and the Senior, girls 
from eleven to eighteen. Thelittle ones donot spend 
much time over preparations: lessons are the great 
thing, and the mistress is constantly with them. She 
is a semi-blind nun, formerly a pupil in the convent; 
she obtained the certificate of first-grade teacher, 
and now devotes herself entirely to the education of 
blind children. She has a class of babies, the young- 
est being three years old, and they must be taught 
everything. Not only have they never learned any- 
thing, which is only natural at their ages, but most 
of them have never seen, that is to say, have never 
touched anything, and so are in complete ignorance. 
Tender and cautious parents have kept the blind 
child in one corner of a room, with no freedom, 
giving her more sweets than toys and more caresses 
than liberty, imagining that the poor little thing can 
take no interest in anything, and perpetually dread- 
ing accidents. So when such children, even at ten 
years old, first come to St Paul’s, they are ignorant 
of quantities of things which much younger children 
know of from seeing them in their homes or out of 
doors. 

So everything has to be taught these little crea- 
tures, some of whom are quite torpid, while others 
will be lively and inquisitive, always trying to touch 
everything within reach. If ‘‘object lessons”’ did not 
exist, they would have had to be invented for blind 
children. Sister Mary Emmanuel minutely explains 
all the words occurring in fables, such as house, 
palace, mouse, tree, branch, etc. All is material 
for information, remarks are freely made, and ques- 
tions asked when the teacher is not explicit enough. 


A blind mistress who has been well taught is per- 
169 





THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


fection for this class of work, having had so many 
things explained to her, she has learnt to explain 
them to others; she knows by personal experience 
exactly how and what to teach, when to dwell ona 
subject, and when to go over the same ground again. 
She is careful to allow no unusual sounds to pass un- 
noticed, which may be heard in class-room, house, 
garden or street; she will interrupt the repetition of 
the verb ‘‘to be” or the fable of the crow to explain 
the muffled rumbling of the Sceaux train in the tun- 
nel under the Rue Denfert, to speak of the drum of 
a passing regiment, the ringing of the knife-grinder’s 
bell, bird-notes in the garden or the carpenter saw- 
ing as he mends the landing floor. Little Cécile, who 
comes in awkwardly shuffling her feet, is gently but 
firmly checked; the blind mistress is not expecting 
any more of her than may be perfectly well obtain- 
ed by care and firmness; she must walk like other 
people, and find her way through the class-room 
without feeling. A mistress with eyesight would be 
less exacting, having always the idea in her mind 
that ‘‘without sight people cannot do this or that.” 
Little Sister Mary Emmanuel is charming, in all the 
zeal and energy of her twenty-six summers. She de- 
votes herself so thoroughly! As she speaks to her 
‘‘very little ones,” you feel she loves the tiny girls 
confided to her care as if they were her own. Nuns 
and women resolved on single life are marvellously 
adapted for teaching; it is surely very superficial to 
say that mothers are preferable, because they love 
and understand children better than spinsters. Is 
there not in all women a powerful maternal instinct, 
a great longing to devote themselves? Nuns and old 
maids have at the disposal of the children of others 


‘treasures of self-abnegation which married women 
170 


THE CLASSES 


have generally used, if not exhausted, on their own 
husbands and children. In mothers the maternal in- 
stinct and attraction are satisfied, in the unmarried 
they are still unquenched, and those who are so fond 
of ascribing all acts of devotion to the impulses of in- 
stinct ought to have no difficulty in seeing the truth 
of this theory. 

Then, in the case of anun, beyond this very natu- 
ral feeling is the supernatural obligation of her duty, 
a duty on which she has to examine her conscience 
twice a day in preparation for her weekly confes- 
sion. Can anyone doubt that such obligations im- 
press her professional responsibilitieson her in an ex- 
ceptional way? But we must not linger, the time has 
not yet come for discussing such serious questions. 

There is an intelligent elasticity about the baby 
blind class; the pupils are not strictly kept in their 
seats; they are often allowed to run about as in ma- 
ternity homes or children’s refuges, where they can 
go up to the Sister and speak to her with the great- 
est confidence. As we enter, every one rises, and in 
a moment many little hands seek ours, and feel curi- 
ously for our hat and umbrella. The children are 
accustomed to be played with and petted; they are 
allowed, and wisely, to touch and examine every- 
thing, it is the only way to lighten their darkness. 
The technical instructions begins with the Braille 





alphabet, formed on the system of raised dots, from 
B.A., ba.* 

A blind child can learn to read from four years 
old, and will often learn quicker than an ordinary 
one, owing to the extreme simplicity of this alpha- 
bet. It is the same thing with writing which is 


purely mechanical. In six months, with an hour’s 


* See further on, ‘‘ Printing the White Books.” 
171 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


/ teaching every day, a little girl will learn to read 
/ and write.’ They read with the first finger of the 
right hand, that of the left follows to regulate, and 
to save time is placed at the beginning of a fresh 
\ line, while the last is ending. The Braille characters 
are so tangible and easy to remember that children 
of eleven or twelve can fluently read ninety-nine 
“words a minute of matter quite fresh to them. 


ns 





elementary notions of arithmetic, abstract figures 
being replaced by concrete and well-known ob- 
jects. According to the time of year, they add up 
apples, chestnuts or cherries, and try to calcu- 
late how much Lucie’s two apples, Cécile’s three 
pears and Clotilde’s four peaches make together. 
Sister Mary Emmanuel complains with reason of 
the dearth of objects for these lessons; she has 
hardly anything to work with, she ought to have 
all kinds of things, toys, patterns of material, leather, 
minerals, leaves, seeds, dried fruits, etc. Friends — 
of the convent could easily send her those odds and 
ends which are so useful in school museums, par- 
ticularly when intended for the blind. Even a very 
dilapidated toy would be most valuable for demon- 
strating, and a cardboard sheep with only three 
legs, would make the fable of the wolf and the 
lamb quite life-like to the little blind girls of the 
Rue Denfert, who have never seen nor touched a 
lamb of flesh and blood. 

The senior class-room is next to the junior, into 
which it opens, and both are furnished alike. They 
contain the usual desk-tables with benches and a 
raised desk for the mistress. The two large win- 
dows of each class-room, which remain open all 


day for health’s sake when the weather permits, 
172 


THE CLASSES 


look on the recreation ground. About twenty pupils 
from eleven to eighteen are divided into different 
sections, and receive very varied instruction ; there 
are no hard and fast rules about the age for receiv- 
ing children, and blindness from accident or illness 
may fall on a girl of fifteen as well as on one of six 
or eight. Parents often do not make up their minds 
to send a child till rather late to a blind school, and 
in such cases teaching is required which will dove- 
tail with very rudimentary knowledge ; sometimes 
nothing in the regulation programme will serve 
the purpose, and it becomes a question of good 
will and good management on the part of mis- 
tress and scholar. The objects used in the school 
are interesting and repay investigation. There are 
first the unmistakable Braille or White Books, 
which I will not describe at present, as I am de- 
voting a whole chapter to them in connexion with 
the printing department. Then come the tablets 
for writing in Braille character: they consist of 
an octavo zinc tablet two millimetres thick, 
scored horizontally with perpendicular grooves 
of two millimetres and a half wide. This tablet 
is set in a zinc or wooden frame on hinges ; the 
two upright sides of the frame are pierced with 
holes corresponding to the grooves, in sets of eight; 
in these holes are placed the hooks of a strip of cop- 
per, which is pierced evenly with horizontal rows of 
upright squares; each square is deep enough to hold 
three grooves measuring seven millimetres in depth; 
in width it can hold two dots side by side, which 
allows of making six dots in each square. 


(173 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Anempty groove runs under each row of squares 
to make the divisions even. A sheet of rather thick 
paper, such as artists use, is placed on the grooved 
tablet and held down by the frame and paper-clips. 
The tablet and the punch specially adapted to the 
use of the blind, are manipulated by them with a 
speed and precision guaranteed by no other system. 
At dictation each pupil takes her tablet and punch, 
and all start working vigorously ; the punches driv- 
ing the paper into the cavities of the zinc tablets 
make a peculiar noise rather like the rhythm of the 
Morse telegraph; you hear little sharp strokes, 
sometimes made very quickly, sometimes inter- 
spersed with short pauses, while the writer is re- 
flecting ; and sometimes in groups of two or three 
according to the characters formed. There is no 
fear of blots or upsetting inkstands, here all is done 
in ‘‘the dry,” but not on white paper, out of 
economy the pupils do their exercises on any paper; 
pamphlets, old copy-books, indexes, announce- 
ments of deaths or marriages, etc’ When the paper 
is strong, such as is used for indexes, or elegant in- 
vitations, the sheet is used single ; if too thin, it is 
folded twice or even three times. Thus a theme on 
‘‘ The Burial of Charles-Quint ”—for this remains 
a popular subject for development—will cover an 
invitation to a wedding, while a little way off a pu- 
pil in another section is writing from dictation 
‘The Spring Morning,” on a mournful black- 
edged card. But this matters little. Were these 
coincidences still more incongruous, they in no way 
disturb the pupil, neither will the finger of the blind 
mistress who is shortly going to correct the exer- 
cises. In familiar school-room parlance all paper 


that is not covered with Braille dots is called 
174 


Vi. 


THE CLASSES 


‘* white,” but the really blank paper is reserved 
for the books printed in the convent. The Braille 
alphabet has been an inexpressible boon for read- 
ing and writing, but we must not forget that it is 
in cypher, and that educated blind people have to 
become acquainted with ordinary characters to be 
able to correspond without an intermediary with 
all who can see. About a hundred different inven- 
tions and machines exist by which the blind man 
can write or print the ordinary alphabet. A certain 
proportion are impractical, others have more or 
less important drawbacks and advantages, accord- 
ing to the age at which the person became blind, 
his aptitude and dexterity, his circumstances in life 
and the uses to which he may have to put his 
writing, etc.; no special one appeals to all or has 
been universally adopted. Many inventions have 
been tried at St Paul’s, and at the present time 
ordinary letters punched in relief are most used.* 
They consist of letters formed by blue dots in re- 
lief. Lessons are learnt in Braille books, as normal 
children might learn them in volumes from Ha- 
chette or Belin; recitations, explanations and lec- 
tures, go on as in all schools; the mistress, sitting 
at her raised desk, asks questions and is answered 
by pupils from their places. Geography is taught 
by maps in relief, which the pupils have under 
their fingers while the teacher describes the part 
they are studying. Terrestrial globes, also in relief, 
are made for the use of the blind, so that they can 
understand the relative positions of the different 
countries of the world. Maps are printed on very 

stout paper, having the outlines of land and sea in- 


*This writing is derived from the Braille system, a blind inventor, Monsieur 
Ballu, perfected it by reducing the number of dots composing the letters and 
introducing the use of a pocket rule. 

175 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


dicated by projecting ridges ; rivers and railways 
are traced in raised lines or a succession of dots, 
and the initial letters of the principal towns, capi- 
tals and important stations, etc., are marked in 
Braille cypher. Thus the blind can easily attain a 
reasonable knowledge of geography. When too 
many details are accumulated on rather a small 
map—for large ones are difficult to hold, and very 
expensive—the finger of the blind girl goes astray ; 
therefore the best maps have as few outlines and 
details as possible. In arithmetic an invention called 
the ‘‘cubarithme ” is used ; the figures are formed 
in Braille on little cubes resembling dice, with the 
difference that the dots are raised instead of hollow. 
To set a sum the metallic cubes are placed on a 
tablet divided into hollow compartments. The pupil 
has beside her a box of these cubes, which she 
uses indiscriminately, as they are all alike. It is 
only necessary to turn the little die in her fingers, 
to find the front and the side with the cypher or 
number required. When the sum is finished, she 
turns the tablet over and replaces the cubes in the 
box without any sorting. It would be a mistake to 
think that a class of blind girls is quieter than one of 
normal school-girls ; the former are very talkative 
and restless, the more so that the longing to speak, 
move, touch, hear others speak and nudge with 
their elbows is very great in blind children ; and 
they are always inclined to press up against each 
other. They do not ‘‘ watch flies ” (‘‘ ne regardent 
pas voler les mouches”) but they listen to every 
noise which distracts their attention. Among blind, 
as well as normal girls, the well-known types ap- 
pear ; there is the ‘‘ good child ” who never needs 
scolding, the noisy girl, ate disobedient girl, the 


THE CLASSES 


lazy girl and the sulky one who is always being 
remonstrated with. Here the blind teacher who as- 
pires really to educate finds great though not in- 
surmountable difficulties. It is always difficult to 
say no less and no more than is necessary ; the 
teacher with eyesight is guided by the expression 
on a child’s face, which rarely remains impassive ; 
but when a blind teacher comes into conflict with 
a sulky child who says little, she finds it very hard, 
especially in rather a large class, to grasp the im- 
pression her remonstrances have produced and to 
regulate her remarks according to the degree of 
feeling she has aroused. She has only general prin- 
ciples to go upon, and these may mislead her. 
Matters are simpler when she is alone with a child 
who is sitting close to her, and a wise mistress will 
contrive to get a child alone after lessons, when 
she has anything serious to say. Then when they 
are by themselves, she will put her arm on the 
girl’s shoulder, or take both her hands, and try to 
conquer her sulkiness. The scolding is done by 
questions ;. the child’s answer, short, angry or 
tremulous, her movements, her gestures, the 
sound of her voice, will shew what the little heart 
is feeling. The sound of the voice has an extraordi- 
nary influence on blind scholars. To have real au- 
thority over a class of blind girls a mistress needs 
very remarkable qualities of heart and intellect if 
she have a defective or ridiculous habit of speech ; 
_ on the other hand, physical deformity or great ugli- 
ness, which would tell against a teacher in a class 
of girls with eyesight, would be no drawback at all 
with the blind. Even if the pupils discovered (as 
such things always leak out sooner or later) that 


their teacher was deformed or ugly, they would 
177 12 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


soon forget it, and only remember what they got 
from her. Music, which is a dominating influence 
in blind schools, and practically of greater import- 
ance than intellectual training, is always in the 
minds of scholars and mistresses. The class-rooms 
adjoin the study cells, and in spite of a solid par- 
tition and double doors, the geography and history 
lessons are always accompanied by a distant con- 
fused murmur of scales, exercises, chords on the 
harmonium and vocal solfeggi. This musical buz- 
zing, so familiar to frequenters of conservatoires 
and schools of music, is far less unpleasant and dis- 
tracting than the near neighbourhood of a single 
pianist, playing in desultory fashion a pot-pourri 
from ‘‘ Mignon” or ‘‘ Carmen.” We will now fol- 
low these sounds, and turn our steps in the direc- 
tion of the music rooms. 


178 


THE MUSICAL SECTION 


@, IV. The Musical Section 


HE music rooms consist of seven apart- 

ments varying in size, which lead from the 

educationalclass-rooms; onerather large one 
is kept for lessons; the others are only cells where 
pupils practise alone and contain nothing but a 
piano or harmonium and a music stool. These 
cells look out on the Rue Denfert, and are lighted 
by narrow windows high up in the wall, which air 
the cells but are depressing to look at, whereas the 
windows of the other class-rooms are wide, cheer- 
ful bays, admitting sunshine, scent of flowers and 
songs of birds. It would seem that music is fascina- 
ting enough to make pupils forget the ugly cells. 
The blind are enthralled by it; ask the intelligent 
responsive girl who is practising the Allegro from 
the ‘‘Pathétique” if she is fond of music, and hear 
her enthusiastic answer, ‘‘Itis my dream, my very 
life!” But she is more than a child, and before being 
able to interpret a sonata there are many stages to 
be gone through of exercises, scales and unin- 
teresting studies, although the mistress intersperses 
them with musical recreations in the form of well- 
known and very melodious chants. These are often 
heard in chapel, and the girls are very proud of 
being able to play them. Children who enter very 
young have their hands put on the piano from four 
years of age—Sister Thérése-de-Jésus, the blind 
_ nun who directs the musical studies, tells us that of 
course these babies do not learn much till they are 


seven or eight, but they get to know their notes, 
179 12a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


and that is betterthan nothing. No particular method 
is necessary in teaching blind children to play the 
piano. The usual terms of black and white notes 
are used, though to many of the girls who have 
never had the use of their eyes these words have no 
objective reality, but as they may have, later on, 
to teach others with eyesight, it is useful for them 
to familiarize themselves as early as possible with 
current expressions. 

At the age of seven or eight blind children com- 
mence the study of music in Braille cypher simul- 
taneously with theoretical and practical instruction. 
The theory of music is even more important to the 
blind than to others, because of the special musical 
characters; these have to be deciphered one by one 
with the fingers, which implies analysis, whereas 
ordinary written music is synthetic. The eye can 
take in a group of signs, but the finger cannot; the 
result is that a beginner with eyesight executes 
almost mechanically what he sees written on the 
score, all the notes intended to be struck together 
being placed one over the other, and it is not in- 
dispensable for him to remember the exact value 
of each note in the bar; but all this is quite differ- 
ent for the blind, they cannot read or play till all 
is made quite clear to them. The Braille musical 
characters composed of the same signs as the al- 
phabet are merely mechanical helps to memory, like 
the system known as ‘‘Galin-Paris-Chevé.” The 
form of a note does not merely indicate its duration 
or value, but its rank and intonation in the scale, 
and the notes and signs corresponding to it, are 
therefore written on a horizontal line like a row of 
words. Eight signs named ‘‘ keys” indicate the eight 


octaves of the musical scheme, and shew to which 
180 


THE MUSICAL SECTION 


octave the notes belong. In concerted or part music, 
the signs called intervals represent the notes which 
are to be played simultaneously with the principal 
theme, when they have the same value; a sign 
specially named ‘‘copula” unites the parts intended 
to be played simultaneously even when of unequal 
value. In piano and organ scores the parts to be 
executed by the right hand are written in the in- 
terval of a phrase of say twenty bars; then those 
for the left hand follow for the same phrase, also 
making a break; these phrases are marked with 
signs indicating right or left hand. Except in vocal, 
or very special kinds of instrumental music, blind 
people cannot play what they have not learned by 
heart ; and young girls practise and commit to me- 
mory with the right hand, what they read with the 
left. Later, when they are perfect in the right-hand 
part of a more or less long phrase, they begin to 
read the four, eight or sixteen corresponding bars 
for the left. Then they combine the two with both 
hands on the keys, stopping from time to time to 
compare the written score and test their memory. 
All this becomes quite exact and dexterous with 
continual methodical practice ; subsequent profound 
study of the scale, harmony, and later on the ele- 
ments of composition, teach the pupils to analyse 
what they have learnt. They grasp the idea asa 
whole, and with deeper comprehension, the mem- 
ory is strengthened. The study of the scale, or what 
is practically musical dictation, is of the greatest 
importance; the blind musician’s ear must be per- 
fectly accurate, and this needs a great deal of prac- 
tice. Exercises in harmony on given themes are 
more often worked out at the piano or harmonium 


than with mechanical tools, because the blind person 
181 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


of necessity writes music synthetically, and not ana- 
lytically, and he cannot, like the man with eyesight, 
take in the whole in a glance. Piano-playing presents 
no special difficulties except perhaps in those long 
stretches and intervals, which are not easy for the 
blind to calculate. 

Pianos and harmoniums for practice are scarce, 
ten to thirty-four pupils, and mostly half worn 
out. It may be imagined that those habits of holy 
poverty and the utilization and preservation of 
everything as long as possible, which we noticed 
as regards the humble utensils of cooking and house- 
work, reach their highest expression where musical 
instruments areconcerned. These last arecostly, and 
I believe that a new piano or harmonium has never 
passed the convent gates. Those we saw in the music 
cells were gifts, after being used for many years; but 
if cleverly repaired they can still be useful for some 
time to come. The convent possesses an ancient 
concert grand piano which was originally a very 
good instrument; it was mended, and now delights 
teachers and pupils alike. It nearly fills the room it 
stands in, and they are obliged to walk round it 
sideways. There are seven more or less venerable 
upright pianos of different makes, one grand and 
two square. Alas! some notes on the latter are 
absolutely dumb, and if one day some generous 
soul is inspired to replace them, the poor invalids 
will be transformed into tables to the satisfaction of 
every one concerned. The giver of the new piano 
will be acclaimed by the little girls who try to ham- 
mer out their exercises, and the big ones who work 
at their harmony on the wretched square pianos 
whose notes are as hollow as tin labels. It is impos- 


sible to mend an instrument without having one to 
182 


THE MUSICAL SECTION 


replace it; it is already difficult enough to see that 
each pupil gets in, according to her powers, one to 
three hours’ practice a day. In the room containing 
the best instrument a blind nun gives music lessons, 
and follows the playér with both her handsemployed 
on a heavy volume of Braille music lying in her lap. 
When the pupil stumbles in a sonata, as will occur, 
the mistress rectifies the mistake from her score. 
The part-singing class is about to begin. Pupils, 
work-girls, novices, professed, all the inmates of 
the house with any pretensions to voice assemble 
in groups of three or four. They are rehearsing a 
sung Mass for Whit-Sunday, and Sister Thérése-de- 
Jésus, who directs the church singing, has gathered 
together her full choir, thirty in all. They are not 
equally gifted, and some have to sing by heart; but 
the real musicians of the assemblage sing and read 
their parts as they go, following the notes with the 
right hand and the letters with the left, as the cus- 
tom is in blind choirs formed of trained singers. The 
conducting sister has the real ‘‘feu sacré,” she is a 
true artist and her enthusiasm is contagious. She sits 
at the harmonium in the midst of the singers, the so- 
prani on her right, and on her left the mezzo-soprani 
and contralti. She does not beat time, but every one 
starts with perfect precision directly the harmonium 
prelude stops. When there is an interval for all, she 
counts one, two, three, four in a low voice; with 
this exception each one keeps time by counting men- 
tally, and the result is astonishingly satisfactory. The 
expression is well given; it is only to be regretted 
that fresh, young voices should be in a minority, 
and that the tired, older ones should give a slightly 
metallic tone to the singing. And if a more artistic 
effect were striven after, the large element of work- 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


women, whose great pleasure is the eagerly antici- 
pated choir practice, would be excluded, and there- 
by deprived of it. When this is taken into considera- 
tion, the defects in the choir seem little compared 
to the enjoyment of the singers. 

And now let us consider what the future is which 
awaits these young girls after their exclusively mu- 
sical education. Their prospects must of course be 
modest, but fairly secure and on the whole agree- 
able. They become teachers of music and organists in 
convents, schools, orphanages and hospitals; some- 
times combining these engagements with the post of 
organist to the parish or mistress of a confraternity 
choir. They are boarded, fed, washed for and mended 
for, and make on an average 300 francs (£12) a year, 
according totheir capacity and the means of the com- 
munity or parish where they work. This is fully equi- 
valent to a salary of 1,200 francs (£48) a year with 
no loss in time of illness, for in that case they are 
always nursed by the community which employs 
them, and often arrange to retire to it when old age 
prevents them working any longer. Thereforeteach- 
ing music is a fair livelihood for a woman; for blind 
women, of course, there is no career which cantouch 
it. Some people have insisted, and still insist, that it 
is better forthe blind to beworkwomenthanteachers 
of music. But this kind of people are sophists, and 
it is waste of time to argue with them:* facts speak 
for themselves. A blind woman can never make by 
any manual trade even forty-five francs (£2) amonth 
regularly; and those who affirm the contrary can- 


*It is needless to say that I speak of Catholic countries where religious 
communities are numerous. In Protestant ones organists are of infinitely 
less importance, though of course they have the resource of teaching music in 
schools. Persons who wish to go into this subject at greater length arereferred to 
my technical books, which are to be had at the Valentin Hatiy Association, 


31 Avenue de Breteuil, Paris. 
184 


THE MUSICAL SECTION 


not have studied the question, and would do well 
to go into it again. But it is only too evident that all 
blind women are not equally fitted to be organists 
or teachers, so those who do not appreciate music 
need have no fear; there will always be enough, if 
not too many, blind, to fill work-rooms, which I am 
sure my readers will admit when I have shewn 
them what blind manual labour really produces. 
Children require a good ear, an instinct for rhythm 
and time, sufficiently supple fingers and an average 
amount of intelligence; if they begin to learn music 
very early, these aptitudes have a fair chance of 
developing; but this is not the case with those who 
only become blind at thirteen or fourteen years old, 
with no previous musical training. All are taught 
music unless there be some unsurmountable reason 
to the contrary; and after a few months’ trial are se- 
lected more or less by age. About thirty or forty per 
cent are eliminated owing to late blindness, insuffi- 
cient aptitudes, etc. As a rule, it is not difficult to 
find employment for blind women who are good 
musicians. Conventschoolsare very numerous;even 
in the meanest neighbourhoods piano lessons are 
required, and sometimes there are no nuns who can 
give them. It is preferable for a music mistress to 
live more or less in community life, instead of in 
the world outside; she can be always on the spot to 
direct the practising and choir singing. She plays 
the harmonium in church, gets up little musical en- 
tertainments, and is quite content with a small 
salary principally paid in kind (service, food and 
lodging), which is not much of a strain on the re- 
sources of the convent. 

Some, as I have said before, are in addition or- 


ganists to their parishes, which adds to their means; 
185 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


but this only applies to the more accomplished. 
The inferior ones make a little in orphanages and 
charitable institutions by teaching hymns and plain- 
song to children and sometimes to old people, and 
accompanying the musical parts of the different 
offices in the chapel when they are very simple and 
always the same. For years the demand for organ- 
ists has exceeded the supply; but, notwithstanding, 
situations are sometimes scarce, and young girls 
with an anxious eye on the future may well say: 


For the sparrow hath found herself a house, and the 
turtle a‘nest for herself where she may lay her young ones: 

Thy altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God!... 

For better is one day in Thy courts above thousands. 

I have chosen to bean abject in the house of my God rather 
than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners.—Psalm Ixxxiii. 


They can apply these words in real earnest to 
themselves, for they are indeed the turtle-doves 
who have found shelter in the sanctuary. [know a 
very old and solitary church, perched high up above 
a little town in Dauphiné, where at almost any time 
between the different offices may be heard the soft 
notes of a harmonium, which stop as soon as the 
door creaks or a chair is moved. The young blind | 
organist lives with the nuns next door, but as she 
has no instrument, she has to come and practise in 
the church. Devout and angelically patient, she 
passes part of every day there, in the presence of 
the tabernacle, as faithfully as the perpetually 
burning lamp which she cannot see. Outside, the 
wind murmurs in the great tree which has over- 
shadowed the church porch for four hundred years, 
swallows fly to and fro calling to each other, and 
the cries of children playing before school echo in 
the distance. The blind organist is silent; she is 


kneeling down by the harmonium, ready to take 
186 


THE MUSICAL SECTION 


up her music again when the church is once more 
empty. Thus her life is one long adoration; for if 
all work, whatever it may be, wherever it may be 
done, becomes prayer when it is offered to Almighty 
God, what shall be said of the prayers offered by 
one whose work it is to learn the hymns and praises 
of the Lord at the very foot of His altar? 


187 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


@, V. The Knitting Department 


HE knitting department was the first in- 

dustry started, and more women are em- 

ployed in it still than in any other. When 
Mlle Bergunion made up her mind, in 1851, to take 
a few blind girls into her work-room, they took up 
knitting, as being a clean and quiet employment that 
harmonized well with the fineneedlework for which 
the establishment in the Rue des Postes was quite 
celebrated in all the great outfitting houses of Paris. 
The care and pains which Mlle Bergunion was very 
strict in expecting from her needlewomen are still 
a tradition in the knitting department also. There 
is but one voice to praise the shape and dainty 
freshness of whatever comes out of Sceur Marie- 
Stéphanie’s cardboard boxes. In the large apart- 
ment called ‘‘ The Children of Mary’s Room ” the 
work-women sit round a narrow table, on which 
each one places her work-box or bag. At one end 
is a little altar with a statue of our Lady watching 
over her children at work, a relic of Anne de Ber- 
gunion ; at the other is a harmonium used to ac- 
company the chants and festal choruses which from 
time to time enliven the monotony of knitting. 
This monotony is almost appalling when we re- 
member that anaverage work-woman knits 2,000 
stitches an hour, and a clever one 2,500, which 
represents 25,000 a day, and 1,500,000 a year! I 
admit that the work is not always even, there are 


loops on the wrong side, crooked ones, ‘‘ reduc- 
188 


KNITTING DEPARTMENT 


tions,” and other pretty things, not to speak of the 
abomination of desolation, ‘‘ dropped stitches ” ! 
These vary the monotony a little, but all the same 
it is terrible to think of making the same move- 
ment twenty-five thousand times a day, with the 
prospect of doing the same thing for life! 
Knitting, to be done well, must be rapid, for the 
evenness depends on the loops, and these can only 
be even when the action which forms them is very 
swift and almost mechanical. Theawkward workers 
who hesitate and knit in spurts, produce uneven 
work. Every one knows how the knitting-loop 
is made; blind and normal women work alike ; 
the thumb and first finger of the left hand guide 
and ‘‘see.” Crochet is also done at St Paul’s; when 
coarse, it is easier than knitting, because only a 
single row of stitches is worked at a time, and 
there are no other needles full of stitches always 
liable to drop ; but fine cotton crochet is very diffi- 
cult, for the tiny stitches embedded in the work it- 
self are hard to pick up, as they are not fixed on 
anything like a knitting needle to keep them firm. 
It is a constant preoccupation to keep knitting fresh 
and unsoiled; for this very dry and very clean 
hands are indispensable; persons who perspire 
freely will never make good knitters, the work being 
constantly held in both hands. Each workwoman 
has a freshly washed piece of linen in her basket, 
and carefully wraps up the work she has begun. 
The simple adjuncts required are well known. 
Those for the blind are the usual ones, with the ex- 
ception of a kind of rosary which some work- 
- women keep on the table, and call it ‘‘ their con- 
science.” It is composed of twenty beads strung on 


a double thread, they can be pushed up or down 
189 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


at will, and are used to count the row or the pat- 
tern. This meets the difficulty of remembering 
without confusion how many rows have been 
worked since ‘‘ reducing”; here memory alone 
can guide, for it would take very long and be al- 
most impossible to go by the fingers; the rows 
cannot be felt distinctly enough to be counted. 
Working with coloured wools is easy, though visi- 
tors are always impressed by it. A workwoman 
will have as many as four different-coloured wools 
in her basket without confusing them, and this is 
not, as some persons imagine, because, with prac- 
tice, the difference in colours can be felt. The most 
that can be discovered by touch are certain indica- 
tions, such as softness or roughness, size of the 
skein, special marks, pins, paper, or knots in the 
ball. The blind woman remembers that her black 
wool is harsher than the white, because of the dye; 
the red is in finer strands, the blue ball is oblong, 
the violet round, a pin is sticking in the light blue, 
etc., and when you ask her to take the white, red, 
blue, black or violet wool out of her basket to 
show you, she is able to do so. But, confuse shapes 
and sizes, in the blue, violet or red balls, and you 
will soon find that colour in itself is imperceptible 
to the touch. In combining colours and designs, 
blind women can make what they know is pretty 
and graceful, or what is ordered of them, but it is 
needless to say that they can originate nothing, 
without they have had eyesight long enough to 
thoroughly understand colour and blending. But 
they are fond of combining different patterns in 
relief, such as ball stitch, diamond stitch, pearl 
stitch, grain-of-rice stitch, etc. 


But if we inquire what can be made by work of 
190 


KNITTING DEPARTMENT 


this kind, the reply, alas, is disheartening. So as to 
keep forty women employed all the year round, 
work for exportation must be taken, and com- 
missions which bring in extremely little. A good 
worker can make three or four pennyworth of 
knitting in ten hours; when she reaches fivepence, 
it is a great triumph, and means that her work is 
exceptional. So many women can knit and crochet 
articles for themselves and their friends. Many also 
sell the work done in their odd moments, to make 
a little extra pocket money, and so are content 
with very small profits. Besides, blind women work 
slower than others of the same skill and intelligence, 
especially in ‘‘finishing off.” Mounting, and sewing 
on edging, bows, buttons, etc., takes time, and if this 
is done by a second woman with eyesight, she also 
has to be paid. Fivepence a day! I must admit that 
I always feel abewildered admiration for the patient 
workers who never get discouraged, and make so 
little ! Think of the hours, and hours, and hours they 
sit knitting, to-morrow, the day after, next week, 
next month, the same thing will go on! Socks, cuffs, 
shawls, capes, stockings! It must indeed be terrible! 
No wonder they look forward to Sunday, with its 
rest and Church offices, holidays with little musical 
and dramatic entertainments (tragedies are usually 
chosen), or even choir-practice. The more mechani- 
cal the work, the keener the longing for change. 
I sometimes wonder if the great thirst for pleasure 
among city workmen be not partly due to the purely 
mechanical nature of most of their trades. When a 
locksmith of the Middle Ages made every part of 
a lock with his own hands, adding any fantastic 
touches that he pleased, I expect that when Sunday 


came round he felt less anxious for amusement than 
191 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


his fellow craftsman of our day, who sits from morn- 
ing till night in the same workshop, with the same 
vice, saw, scales, rivets and the rest, before him, 
at work on the same style of lock which is being re- 
produced by thousands. The field-labourer, despite 
the influx of agricultural machinery, still keeps a 
certain amount of variety in his work, and he 
always has the unexpected element in changes of 
weather and temperature; he works in different 
places, in the open air instead of in a factory, and 
hence is less anxious for diversion out of working 
hours. ‘To monotonous labour the counter-balance 
of recreations and holidays is necessary: this is well 
understood at St Paul’s, though of course the amuse- 
ments partake of a pious character, since they 
take place in a convent before an audience of 
‘‘Children of Mary,” but still they are amuse- 
ments, and are as frequent, animated and gay as 
possible. On the Superior’s or Chaplain’s feast day, 
all the tables are removed, a platform is arranged, 
and all the parlour and chapel chairs are brought 
in. It is even an amusement for the work-girls 
to take hands and pass the chairs along. ‘‘ Fabiola,’ 
‘*Estelle: or Gratitude,” ‘‘Jeptha’s Daughter,” etc., 
etc., are played. In these pieces all the actors are 
blind, some are very clever, and all are very fond 
of dressing up. Their great delight is to re-incarnate 
themselves as chimerically rich girls, very old 
dowagers, Biblical personages, etc., any people who 
are far removed from the life they know. All this 
is real recreation, rest and recuperation to them. 
As we leave the Children of Mary’s workroom with 
its endless labyrinth of stitches, we recall instinc- 
tively Le Play’s words, ‘‘The real aim of work is 


virtue and not money.” 
192 


THE BRUSH-MAKING DEPARTMENT 


@, VI. The Brush-Making Department 
HE brush-making department is of recent 
creation and only dates from 1891. In 1892 
the work received a fresh impetus from 
the Valentin Haiiy Association, when this society 
began to send its blind girls and adult women there 
to be apprenticed.* 

It was the special charge of Sister Mary Magda- 
len, who, as I have mentioned before, was one of 
the victims of the catastrophe of May 4, 1897. Each 
detail of the workrooms recalls the memory of the 
dear nun, and at every step you hear her name; as 
intelligent as she was holy, she organized, formed 
and arranged everything with the help of Sister 
Mary of Carmel, who now replaces her, and makes 
it her business to carry out the dead sister’s excel- 
lent traditions. 

To those persons who have never seen a brush 
taken to pieces, it is necessary to explain that it is 
usually composed of four parts: wood, of which 
there is a slab, pierced with even rows of holes; 
silk (the long hairs of divers animals); string, or 
wire, used to fix the silk or vegetable fibre to the 
back; and finally the back of the brush, which is a 
piece of wood more or less carefully made and 
polished, according to the quality of the brush and 
the use to be made of it. The different parts of the 
brush are made in large quantities in special fac- 

tories; the ‘‘mounter’s” work consists in putting one 


*The Professional School for Blind Workers, 1 Rue Jacquier, Paris, to 
which France owes the spread of the profession of brush-making among the 
blind, gave the first instruction to the St Paul’s Brush-Making Department. 

193 13 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


by one the little bunches of silk or fibre, known as 
‘‘tufts,” into the wooden holes with her fingers. 
The head ‘‘mounter,” holding the wood in her left 
hand, takes in her right a tuft of either silk or 
vegetable fibre, which must be perfectly even; she 
next folds it in half, passing it through a loop of 
cord or wire previously formed inthreading through 
the wood; and then pulls it tight, so as to get the 
tuft firmly fixed in the hole. The worker is seated 
ona conveniently high stool, before a table or bench 
raised sufficiently for her to stand up occasionally 
to her work. Three sides of the table have a ledge, 
against which rest the little packets of silk, fibre, 
etc., etc. A strong screw is fastened to the bench, 
to hold down the end of. wire or string in use. Up 
to this stage blind and normal are extremely handy, 
though the former are a great deal slower; a blind 
woman will fill 150 holes an hour when one who can 
see would fill 280 or 300. But when the process of 
cutting comes, that is to say, clipping the tufts of 
silk or fibre so that they are even at the ends, the 
two categories of women begin to work on different 
lines. Those who can see wait till all the holes are 
full, and then clip them all to the same length with 
a large pair of scissors, the blind are obliged to cut 
row after row with a long, wide pair of shears, of 
which one half is fastened to trestles; the left hand 
holds the wooden part of the brush, while the right 
moves the free half of the shears. In order that the 
blind woman may be sure of handling her tools 
evenly, a horizontal or parallel support is added to 
that half of the shears which is fixed on the trestles. 
This support is movable; it can be brought close 
to the edge of the shears or moved farther off; the 


worker takes her measurements beforehand, ad- 
194 


THE BRUSH-MAKING DEPARTMENT 


justs her supports and has nothing more to do but 
just press the wood of the brush against the sup- 
port, while she moves the blade of the shears with 
the same dexterity and precision as if she could see. 
The necessity for stopping at each row of tufts 
wastes a great deal of time. 

As soon as we enter the convent courtyard, and 
close behind us the gates which shut out the road, 
we find ourselves close to the brush department. As 
we approach we hear the brush-makers in animated 
conversation, laughing and sometimes singing, for 
the workroom is almost too small for them and 
doors and windows are constantly open. Of course, 
none of the departments at St Paul’s are very large, 
but the brush-room is smaller than any; as it was 
started after all the others, whatever space re- 
mained was made the most of, and we find the work- 
women and their brushes crowded and squeezed up 
into a few square yards, with only half the room 
really needed for the twelve apprentices, and the 
brushes and brooms ready for sale. Things are on 
quite a different footing from the knitting depart- 
ment; that holds the ‘‘Children of Mary,” these are 
**St Joseph’s Workwomen.” They come from the 
four corners of the earth; one was a dressmaker be- 
fore losing her sight, another a glove-maker, a third 
worked at boot-stitching, a fourth has been lady’s 
maid. Here is an Algerian, there a Bretonne; some 
are young girls of eighteen, others women approach- 
ing forty. All this means much more life and indi- 
viduality. Each workwoman has fixed in the corner 
of her bench a statue denoting her special devotion; 
_ one is our Lady of Lourdes with clasped hands and 

a plaster rosary in the highest relief, another is 


St Anthony carrying the Infant Jesus, another St 
195 13a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Joseph with his lily, etc. These statuettes answer to 
a needof the blind woman’s soul; she cannot, like her 
happier sisters, lift up her head from time to time 
to draw fresh courage and fervour from the sight 
of the statue, picture or crucifix hanging on the wall; 
she knows that the great statue of the Blessed Virgin 
is in the room because she has sometimes touched 
it, but she is not in constant contact with it, and it 
is no ever-present symbol to her. But the statue 
close at hand, touched at will, speaks to the blind 
fingers as pictures and statues speak to seeing eyes. 
Here the work is less monotonous than knitting; a 
brush is sooner completed than a stocking or a cuff; 
there is the clipping of each row and the changes of 
shape which lose time, slacken work, but make va- 
riety. The women set each other tasks: ‘‘Come, let’s 
each begin a brush and see who gets done first.” 
They get quite excited, spur each other on and sing 
as they work. As we enter, they are nearly all en- 
gaged on oval flat brushes with short, stiff, silk 
bristles, technically known as ‘‘dabs,” being in the 
shape of that fish. They are for the cavalry, and the 
order is a large one. Unfortunately, owing to a con- 
tract, the work is done for a middleman and brings 
in hardly any profit; but the prisons all have brush 
departments and will always take orders for next 
to nothing, so St Paul’s must submit or close the 
work-room. The wooden parts of these said ‘‘dabs,” 
which are turned out by thousands in the Ardennes, 
are drilled by machinery, and so carelessly that 
most of the holes are not large enough to hold the 
silk tufts, so that the workers, to avoid losing time in 
mounting the brushes, have to begin by driving a sti- 
letto into each of the 360 holes to enlarge them! ‘*We 


do them,” they say, ‘‘as we walk about at recreation; 
196 


THE BRUSH-MAKING DEPARTMENT 


we finish a wooden back each time we go out.” A 
young blind nun works at the bench in the middle 
of the room; she is alert and cheerful, remarkably 
persevering and dexterous. This is the forewoman, 
Sister Marie-Louise. The new apprentices are con- 
stantly appealing to her. ‘‘ Sister Marie-Louise, my 
thread is broken, what am I to doP I have no more 
fibre. I’ve lost my place.” And the little Sister, who 
keeps the most advanced girls nearest her, leaves 
her work to go and help the beginner and start her 
again. Often she does not wait to be called, but 
walks about among the women, feeling the brushes 
to see if the work is compact and the bristles quite 
even and neatly clipped. Sister Marie-Louise was 
the first blind apprentice sent by the Valentin Hatiy 
Association to the St Paul’s work-room when first 
it opened: it was a lucky choice, as she quickly be- 
came an expert. After spending some time in a 
work-room close to a large brush factory in the Oise 
department, she felt a vocation to the religious life, 
and entered St Paul’s, where she became in time a 
professed nun, and now teachesthe newrecruits what 
she was so glad to learn herself. She is just suited to 
her post, as she has not only technical ability but 
understands explaining and demonstrating in the 
special way understood and preferred by the blind. 
Then, too, Sister Marie-Louise knows by experience 
the sadness and discouragement which assail and 
threaten to overwhelm young girls of twenty who 
have lost their sight. She also remembers how dear 
Sister Mary Magdalene treated the poor afflicted 
souls; she soothes, without ever wounding or slight- 
ing them. It is quite as important as teaching brush- 
making, to instil that strength and moral vigour 


which give the wish to work with determination 
197 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


and perseverance. On Sundays and holidays the ap- 
prentices are her scholars, and Sister Marie-Louise 
teaches them reading and writing, having herself 
learnt the Braille characters at the age of twenty. 
The raw materials and completed articles are 
kept in two tiny rooms, one of which is little more 
than a covered way. Every corner is utilized, the 
space is so small that even the windowssills are full 
of brushes, in every direction are suspended racks 
full of brushes and brooms, they even hang from 
the ceiling. Large pegs are screwed behind the 
doors to hold all the string collected in the house 
and carefully untied for use; during the ten years 
that brushes have been sold at St Paul’s not an inch 
of string has ever been bought to tie up parcels; the 
paper used for wrapping them up is also collected 
from all sources, and even these small economies 
are of use. Sister Mary of Carmel selects a broom 
which she shows us with great pride: it is a new 
model, invented in the work-room, and known as 
the ‘‘fin-de-siécle.” The idea is ingenious: the 
wooden back of the broom is edged with two rows 
of holes filled with wool, making a kind of fluffy 
pad to protect the furniture or wallsof grand houses; 
it gives the brooms a ‘‘fin-de-siécle cachet,” say the 
brush-making nuns, the epithet sounding quaintly 
on their tongues. I need hardly inform my readers 
that the scraps from the knitting room are used for 
this purpose. In a corner stands a table covered 
withscrapscarefully collected from the floor. These 
willbe carefully sorted according to size, and from 
the tumbled heap some ounces of pure silk extrac- 
ted. The raw material is very expensive, silk for 
clothes and hat-brushes costing as much as. 60 


frs per kilogramme. This initial expenditure, the 
198 


THE BRUSH-MAKING DEPARTMENT 


necessary tools, the veneering and polishing, etc 
all cut down the profits of brush-making. Un- 
fortunately in the sale of ordinary brushes the hand 
labour is only valued at two-tenths of the profit; that 
is to say, on a brush costing 3 frs (2s. 4d.) a deduction 
of 2.40frs (1s. 10d.) for raw material, veneering, etc., 
leaves, at the outside, 50 centimes (5d. ) as the work- 
er’s profit. This means that a great deal of capital is 
required in this industry, and that to ensure a wage 
to the worker of 400 francs (£16) a year, there must 
be a sale of 4,000 francs’-worth (£160) of brushes. 
Brush-making, of course, brings in more than knit- 
ting; the former industry is very simple and needs 
but short apprenticeship, which, alas! is obliged 
to be the case with any manual trades that the 
blind can learn. Because it is easy to learn, it is 
much followed in prisons and in those parts of the 
country where women and girls want additional 
work during the winter, and will accept nominal 
pay. This still further lowers the blind worker’s 
profits. 

A factory or country worker only gets 40 or 50 
centimes (4d. or 5d.) for every thousand holes 
filled with bristle; they can fill 300 to 400 holes an 
hour, i.e., 3,000 to 4,000 in a ten-hours’ day, which 
leaves 1.50 francs (1s. 3d.) for the worker. But the 
blind brush-maker generally works slower, and 
thinks herself lucky if she can fill 1,500 to 2,000 
holes and get 75 centimes (74d.) to 1 franc (10d.) a 
day; many cannot get through more than 1,000 
holes. The poor women’s dependable earnings can 
easily be calculated, if we remember the Sundays, 
holidays, illnesses or accidental causes that suspend 
or delay work, not to speak of change of patterns, 


time wasted in waiting for orders, or for the raw 
199 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


material to arrive, the inevitable fluctuations of 
trade and intervals of stock-taking. 

When work is done for a customer without any 
middleman, personal labour becomes more profit- 
able, and often brings in 1 fr. (10d.) to 1.50 frs 
(1s. 3d.) per thousand holes. Thus my readers will 
gather how much good they can do without spend- 
ing a halfpenny extra by simply giving their custom 
to the blind. Recently the public was deeply moved 
by the hidden sufferings brought to light by an 
inquiry into the condition of Viennese workwomen, 
made in March, 1896. It was proved that most of 
the seamstresses only made 1.60 frs (1s. 4d.) a day, 
by working twelve, thirteen or fourteen hours, 
with a regularly recurring slack season of five or 
six months in the year. How could these poor 
wretches live? The inquiry gave a terrible answer. 
Well, does it seem reasonable to expect a blind 
woman, who can only work at half the speed of 
another, and can only be trained to certain depre- 
ciated trades (depreciated because they are easily 
learnt and mostly followed by prisoners) to keep 
herself entirely by manual labour? (Of course lam 
not alluding to those who keep shops.) I must 
repeat that I do not understand how people can 
reproach Blind Schools in France with making a 
special effort to train girls as organists and teachers 
of music, whenever feasible. 

To resume: the acquisition of regular customers 
and the loss of profit are a continual anxiety. So 
as to sell direct to the buyers without the interven- 
tion of a middleman, the energetic Sister Mary 
Magdalene, accompanied by her lieutenant, Sister 
Mary of Carmel, used constantly to make the 


round of convents, religious institutions and the 
200 


THE BRUSH-MAKING DEPARTMENT 


sacristies of Parisian churches, where, samples in 
hand, they begged for orders. This is hard work, 
and more often meets with rebuffs than encourage- 
ment; however, brooms and brushes are always 
and everywhere wanted, which is more than can 
be said for woollen shawls easily knitted at home; 
and with patience and perseverance regular custo- 
mers for the brushes can be secured. The ‘‘Bazar 
de la Charité,” which is never mentioned at St 
Paul’s save with bated breath, had been an annual 
source of important and increasing profit. When 
talking to Sister Mary of Carmel about her dear 
Sister Mary Magdalene, I learned a touchingly 
simple detail of her life: ‘‘She was always thinking 
of others,” said the surviving nun, ‘‘and sometimes 
on Sundays she would say, ‘Let us put down all the 
suggestions and information we get about the work, 
so that if we have to leave it, others may not have 
the difficulties we had in the beginning.’” This 
struck me as a triumph of the true religious spirit; 
these two nuns who had worked their hardest to 
start the workshop with its apprentices, customers 
and whole organism, were ready at their superior’s 
slightest hint, and without explanation or delay, to 
leave the work which they loved as people love 
their hardest-won triumphs; and only one thing 
preoccupied them—the smoothing of the way for 
their successors. With such instruments at her com- 
mand surely a superior can move mountains! 


201 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


@, VII. The Printing of the ‘‘White Books” 
B OOKS for the blind arestrangeand abnormal- 


looking. One thinks of volumes as compact 

objects, heavy in proportion to their size, 
and whether containing print, manuscript, text, il- 
lustration, music or figures, they are impossible to 
conceive as blank paper. But we must now make 
acquaintance with white pages, covered with round 
blisters or raised strokes: these excrescences run 
like an eruption over the surface, distend the vol- 
ume, and make it heavy, large and cumbersome. 
Everything is very clean in printing for the blind; 
a great deal of water but not a drop of ink is used; 
there seems something mysterious in, so to speak, 
incorporating the vivid thoughts of Bossuet, Cor- 
neille, Bach or Schumann in these great pages 
which remain as white after anything is committed 
to them as before. 

Since 1786, when the first book in relief was 
printed by Valentin Hatiy, numerous modifica- 
tions have been introduced which it is not neces- 
sary to describe here; the books of Valentin Hatiy 
and his imitators are printed in raised letters of the 
ordinary Roman type. Repeated attempts have been 
made at forming letters which should be easily and 
quickly felt, without taking up too much room, a 
result very difficult to obtain. Owing to the rather 
complicated shapes of Latin letters and Arabian 
figures, they must be fairly large to be perceptible 
to the touch. But then these characters may ex- 


tend beyond the acutely sensitive part of the finger | 
202 


PRINTING OF THE ‘‘ WHITE BOOKS” 


tip, which in women and children is rather limited. 
In this case there must be constant stroking and 
fumbling about the letters, rendering reading very 
slow. The characters are only recognized with ease 
when isolated, and this means that to containareason- 
able quantity of matter a book must be enormous. 
On the other hand, if the characters be reduced 
till they can be completely covered by the ‘‘field 
of vision” at the finger tips, simple letters like i, 
o, u, 1, v, will stand out, but complicated shapes 
like e, f, g, etc., will be confusing and clumsy to the 
touch; they have too many small lines, and the prin- 
cipal strokes are too often looped back to lend 
themselves to bold relief. The finger cannot slip 
quickly enough from one letter to another, and 
reading, unless by an exceptional scholar, is very 
slow. Finally, after many experiments, and much 
testing and rejecting of different methods in Europe 
and America, the cypher alphabet invented by the 
blind Louis Braille was almost universally adopted. 
It consists, as I have explained before, in a com- 
bination of six raised dots. 


All Braille characters, whether written or printed, 
are alike; in print they are firmer and less liable to 
get dented. 


The first Braille book was printed in 1829, at the j f 


Royal Institute for the youthful Blind in Paris; and} ;- 


— 


in 1864 the Abbé Juge started the Blind Nuns’ print- ; 


ing department. At first it was only used to provide 
the community with books of devotion, and the chil- 
dren with Lives of the Saints, grammars and arith- 


metic books; only one or two of the blind nuns 
203 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


worked at the printing, which was carried on in a 
limited space and with rudimentary materials. It 
has gradually grown, till it is one of the most im- 
portant departments in the house. Nine blind wo- 
men, including five nuns, are constantly at work, 
under the direction of Sister Mary Xavier, a very 
intelligent and enterprising little blind woman, 
who came to the convent in 1866, when the print- 
ing was in its infancy, and became an invaluable 
helper to the Abbé Juge and the Valentin Haty 
Association, which has done so much for blind 
printing. Skilful and bold in the best sense of the 
word, Sister Mary Xavier set her blind helpers to 
stereotyping and ‘‘lifting,” hitherto considered im- 
possible without sight. This proves once more how 
rash it is to limit the powers of the blind. Her best 
pupil, Sister Mary Lucy, is now head assistant, and 
takes sole charge of one department. After several 
changes, the printing establishment was finally lo- 
cated in two large ground-floor rooms. I believe 
Sister Mary Xavier half regrets the miniature 
printing department of 1866, where everything and 
every one was crowded up together. But she was 
young then and had just entered religious life; each 
experiment and test was a novelty, and human 
beings are so made that the glamour of first experi- 
ment can never return when things are launched 
and running smoothly. Great activity reigns in the 
‘*White Book” factory. On busy days when proofs 
are wanted in a hurry, as many as twelve blind or 
semi-blind women are moving about the room, 
but all is perfectly arranged, and each worker 
thoroughly understands where she has to go, and 
what she has to do. They walk about carrying 


paper and heavy ‘‘formes” on wooden trays which 
204 


PRINTING OF THE ‘‘ WHITE BOOKS” 


rest on their chests and outstretched arms; they 
pass each other again and again, without the slight- 
est confusion, hesitation or accident. ‘‘It is years 
since a forme was dropped,” says Sister Mary Lucy; 
‘*we may say that such a thing never happens.” 

To attain these results the greatest order and 
regularity are necessary; every object must be re- 
turned to the exact spot it was taken from, and 
each person must always go in the same direction 
to perform the same action; this, of course, applies 
to any complex and combined labour. When hun- 
dreds and thousands of sheets have to go to press 
(on an average St Paul’s prints six hundred thou- 
sand pages a year) it is of importance that no use- 
less or aimless movements should be made, and that 
each one should work unimpeded. All is arranged 
to this end, and the human machinery works with 
all the precision of steel and the suppleness of 
india-rubber. 

Composition and printing are two perfectly dis- 
tinct departments of labour: the first is, to a certain 
extent, intellectual, the second, purely mechanical. 
Composing is done in two ways: typographically, 
by movable letters taken one by one from ‘‘cases,” 
and arranged first in lines, and then in pages and 
‘*formes”; or by reproducing the characters, one 
by one, on double sheets of zinc or copper, placed 
on a Braille tablet made of steel for this special 
purpose. Each dot is made by hammering on a 
steel punch; the page thus written, first on the 
right side and then on the reverse, is withdrawn 
from the tablet and unfolded like an oyster-shell, 
the zinc forming a kind of hinge. After being care- 
fully checked and corrected the stereotype or plate 


is ready for the impression; nothing now remains 
205 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


but to introduce the sheet of paper between the 
two halves of the zinc oyster-shell, and pass it under 
the press, which completes the printing. Owing to 
want of space the stereotyping workshop is in a 
kind of adjoining passage. ‘‘Space is always rare in 
Paris,” and it has to take in five blind nuns. There is 
always a great deal of work on hand; the ‘‘Revue 
Braille” * and the ‘‘Louis Braille” are printed in the 
convent, as well as numerous devotional, literary 
and musical works, which are in constant demand. 
The stereotypes of those which have been finally 
revised are of permanent value. Stereotyping has 
many advantages over typography proper: it saves 
time and space, as the characters can be printed on 
both sides, f and very small quantities of matter can 
be printed, as the stereotypes are indestructible and 
can be used at any time. Consequently, it is not 
necessary to overload shops with numberless copies 
of the same work, a cumbersome and expensive 
procedure which locks up the capital expended on 
paper and binding. But stereotyping requires great 
dexterity and care in the operator, as corrections 
are difficult and sometimes impossible to make. 
Carelessness or the omission of a phrase, line or 
letter may necessitate remaking the whole stereo- 
type or four pages. The left side of the printing 
room is taken up with all that concerns typographic 
composition, the right with the materials for print- 
ing: down the centre a large space is kept vacant for 
the ‘‘lifters,” ‘‘wetters, ” ‘‘stretchers,”’ etc., to come 


* The ‘‘Louis Braille,” a monthly review, gives special instruction and 
information to the blind, which they cannot otherwise obtain. The ‘‘Revue 
Braille” is a weekly publication, and keeps them in touch with literary, 
scientific, musical and political subjects; these two papers are issued by the 
Valentin Haiiy Association for the welfare of the blind. 

+ Since this was written it has been found possible to type on both sides 
of the paper, and the Valentine Haiiy Association will shortly introduce this 
improvement at St Paul’s. 

206 


PRINTING OF THE ‘‘ WHITE BOOKS” 


and go: overhead is a network of wires of which I 
willexplain the use presently. In order thoroughly to 
understand the working of this department, we will 
watch the evolution of a literary or musical work, 
such as a conference by Pére Monsabré, or a suite 
by Grieg, hitherto unpublished in Braille. First of 
all the text is handed over ,to a little half-blind 
novice, who can read or manage to make out fair- 
sized printed characters, by holding them close to 
her poor dim eye. Two novices are thus employed, 
Sister J. copies words, and Sister P. music, the 
latter requiring wider accomplishments; one can 
see with her left eye and the other with her right, 
but both together do not equal an ordinary pair of 
eyes. These cases of abnormal vision are very 
peculiar. One woman will be able to read even 
small print if held close enough, yet cannot help 
knocking against people as they pass her on the 
pavement or tell the difference between a man 
on horseback and a furniture van. Another can 
find her way perfectly along a crowded thorough- 
fare, but can only read letters of two centimetres 
in size; one can see as well by artificial light as by 
daylight, another becomes totally blind when lights 
are lit. Be this as it may, all these strange limita- 
tions of sight are utilized by the blind nuns of St 
Paul, and with discrimination they can be of real 
uses. When Pére Monsabré’s conference or Grieg’s 
‘*Cantilena” has been written in Braille and care- 
fully corrected, the copy is passed on to one or 
more compositors, according to,the amount of work 
on hand and the workers available. The ‘‘cases” 
_ lie on large tables, first those for the words, and 
farther off those for the music; between the two 


is a little ‘‘case” for Sister Mary Lucy, who directs 
207 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


this branch. She corrects, checks and finishes the 
setting-up in the same way that Sister Mary 
Xavier overlooks all the stereotyping. The blind 
compositor puts the Braille copy in the case, read- 
ing with her left hand. With her right she looks 
for the letters (or, to put it correctly, finds them 
unerringly) in the letter-box of the case, and puts 
them on a sort of wooden palette about the size of 
a page, with a raised edge on three of its sides. The 
letters are in lead alloy, and consequently rather 
heavy, and are shaped like small, thick dominoes, 
having the Braille characters at one extremity. 

They are placed upright side by side on the pal- 
ette, resting against the left and top edges; the first 
row is unstable, but when two or three have been 
set up, they form a solid mass, framed on three 
sides in wood, and firmly supported underneath by 
a leaden block. The palette, thus filled, can be car- 
ried to the ‘‘unfinished-shelf,” and thence to the 
correcting table, where, having been duly correc- 
ted, checked, etc., it is tied tightly across three 
times with strong cord, and becomes the ‘‘forme” 
ready for printing. But first a proof has to be made, 
which a very careful blind woman, assisted by one 
who can still see a little, compares with the origi- 
nal black and white text. Music is treated in the 
same way as words, but with even more care and 
attention in the correction, as a fault is so easily 
made in the musical text. The corrector must under- 
stand the pages before her as a whole, with the 
musical scheme and harmonies, to be able to check 
what looks doubtful. The blind nuns have the 
reputation of turning out very correct proofs, and 
they make a great point of deserving it. 


As I have explained before, all that appertains 
208 


PRINTING OF THE ‘‘ WHITE BOOKS” 


to the letterpress is kept on the right side of the 
printing-room. These are, a fountain with a large 
and very shallow zinc trough in which to plunge 
the sheets of paper; a marble table with a drain; 
the great roller-press for the typed proofs, which 
are done in sheets of eight in octavo or four 
quarto pages; a little hand roller-press, easily 
turned, for the stereotyped proofs which are on 
small sheets of two in octavo or one quarto 
page; and lastly, cupboards full of paper in piles 
eighteen feet high, corresponding to those on the 
left, which contain the composed pages ready to put 
on the formes, or the formes themselves before 
they are put under the press. Proofs in relief re- 
quire very thick cartridge or drawing paper, 
which must be damp, but not dripping, and therefore 
is wetted overnight. Each sheet is soaked sepa- 
rately in the trough of water until completely im- 
mersed; then they are put one over the other on 
the marble table, the last being covered with india- 
rubber. A heavy weight is then placed over all, 
and for four and twenty hours the paper absorbs 
the moisture and allows the superfluous fluid to 
drip off. When the time has come for printing, and 
the ‘‘formes” are in the ‘‘bed” of the press, a sheet 
is taken from the table and placed on the ‘‘formes,”’ 
and a ‘‘reeler” winds the press. Printing in relief 
requires also slow winding, a certain time must 
elapse before the paper is well moulded on to the 
characters, and takes their shape; the fibres of the 
paper must adapt themselves to ridges and lines, 
and this is a sensibly slower process than simply 
stamping ink or colour on the surface. Next the 
‘‘lifter” very dexterously and quickly removes the 


printed sheet, lays it on a cardboard tray beside 
209 14 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


the press, and taking a fresh sheet, fixes it over the 
‘*formes,” flattens the india-rubber, which is used 
to support the relief, and the press starts again. 
The ‘‘lifter’s” work is very delicate, as great dex- 
terity is required in handling, without tearing, the 
large sheets of paper measuring 65 by 50 centimetres, 
particularly after the printing, when they are apt 
to stick to the projecting characters. One hundred 
sheets an hour is an average record. 

The ‘‘dryer” then takes the cardboard tray con- 
taining twenty or thirty sheets, and mounts a short 
pair of steps which end in a small table intended 
to hold the tray of paper to be dried. She then 
carefully lifts the sheets separately, for they are 
easily torn or defaced, and stretches them on the 
galvanized wires, in due rotation, as linen is hung 
up to dry, but with infinitely more care. A man 
with eyesight would not proceed in the same way; 
instead of the steps he would use a ‘‘peel,” that is 
to say, a long stick in the shape of a T. The sheet 
to be dried would be hung crosswise over the hori- 
zontal piece of wood, and placed on the wire next 
to the one last finished. His sight would allow of 
his working from a distance, but touch necessitates 
proximity, hence the difference between blind and 
other labour. I have already mentioned the small 
press, which only takes in sheets of 33 by 25 
centimetres; it is much easier to wind, and is kept 
for small stereotypes. Here the ‘‘lifter” is able to 
sit down to her work, which is not so difficult as 
typing. She has a pile of wet sheets beside her, and 
taking up one, she places it between the two halves 
of the stereotype, and while the press is turning, 
she takes the paper out of the preceding stereotype, 
replaces it by a fresh sneet and lays it under the 


PRINTING OF THE ‘‘ WHITE BOOKS” 


press in its turn. Pages one, two, seven, eight of 
the upper stereotype are printed alternately with 
pages three, four, five, six of the under. Good 
‘‘lifters” and ‘‘reelers” can manage 200 sheets an 
hour. 

A great sense of peace reigns over the busy scene. 
Weare in June, the windows looking on the garden 
are wide open, the warm, lime-scented air pours 
in, compositors and correctors as they work hear 
the birds sing in the trees of Chateaubriand’s park; 
they listen, we are sure, but they hear still more 
clearly the song which is for ever rising in their 
own hearts to the Beloved, always present, and 
always filling the soul of His servants, His chosen, 
His spouses. Here are no vague heart-sinkings and 
wistful day-dreams; He for whom they work, to 
whom they offer each letter, each turn of the wheel, 
each sheet, will not fail them nor break His pro- 
mises. Work begun sometimes languidly and wearily 
soon becomes a source of happiness; instead of bitter- 
ness and disappointment at the end of the task, joy, 
light-heartedness and peace await them, and so the 
hours pass serenely on. Silence falls over the little 
home of the great ‘‘ White Books”; the presses no 
longer turn, the steps of the stretchers have ceased, 
hushed is the perpetual hammering of the stereo- 
typers and the smooth, quick tap of the characters 
dropping back into the cases, like the first drops of 
a thunder shower on parched ground. The bell has 
rung for thenight Office, and with the sound theroom 
has become empty and silent. That spontaneous 
obedience which leaves a wheel half turned, a word 
half finished is the groundwork of the graceful 
legend so often repeated in convents, of the beauti- 


full angel who finished in gold letters the won. left 
211 a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


blank for love of the Holy Rule. Chairs, punches, 
hammers, formes are all in their appointed places 
within reach of the blind workers who will find them 
next day without ‘hesitation, when they come back 
to work till the bell stops them once more. The 
great dotted sheets wave on their wires in the rising 
breeze, their substance is gradually hardening and 
incorporating the great thoughts which blind fingers 
have helped totransmit to the brains of the sightless. 

Strange and wonderful anomaly! Weak man, so 
powerless to prolong for a few seconds the fleeting 
spell of his happiness while he loves and is loved 
again—man who dares hardly enjoy anything to the 
full, lest his capacity become exhausted—this very 
creature can fix and transmit down the centuries 
that most intangible and fugitive of all things—a 
thought! For interminable ages this thought will 
strengthen or disturb the souls of others, it may 
bring them life, enthusiasm or despair. This is the 
weight of responsibility which the author must ac- 
cept with fame. To-morrow the leaves will be dry; 
charged with intellectual or spiritual savour, they 
will be folded, sorted, bound, and at last, in great 
volumes they will be stored in the huge pigeon-holes 
which reach to the ceiling of that adjoining room 
where we lately heard the hammers and punches 
of the stereotypers at work.'The books are carefully 
wrapped in old newspapers given to the community 
—we know that nothing is wasted at St Paul’s— 
and, well-preserved from dust, they await the time 
when they will be dispatched toevery part of France 
and the four quarters of the globe. Here are boxes 
addressed to Toulouse, Nancy, Lyons, Lisbon, Co- 
penhagen, Boston, Rio-Janeiro, each with its Braille 


label, for blind hands undertake everything per- 
212 


PRINTING OF THE ‘‘ WHITE BOOKS” 


taining to libraries as well as printing. The Superior 
or Novice-Mistress hands in letters, almost always 
written in Braille, asking for books; the blind wo- 
men look them out, and get together classical 
works, books of devotion, stories, music for piano, | 
organ or voice, and technical books. They weigh 
the parcels on scales from the brush-room; the hand 
can judge as well as the eye which half of the scales 
is the heavier, and Sister Mary Xavier does not 
need sight any more than does the practised trades- 
man to tell whether the weight she is lifting be la- 
belled 10, 100, or 1,000 grammes; the shape and size 
of the box and the pigeon-hole she took it from 
are sufficient indications. 

As I have said before, everything is utilized in 
this home of order and economy; even an odd- 
shaped piece of metal which the Sister tells us was 
found among some tools belonging to the Father 
Founder. ‘‘We use it to weigh the packages,” she 
tells us, ‘‘we know it weighs 4,525 grammes, and 
by adding 75 grammes, we get the kilogramme, 
which is missing in our set of weights.” The paper 
used to wrap up the books comes with the sheets 
for printing; it is carefully kept, as well as the 
string which I mentioned earlier. When the pack- 
age is ready, the address is put on by a novice who 
can see—she also fills up the invoice—and then the 
‘‘white books” leave the blessed house where they 
have been manufactured by the blind, and go forth 
to the rest of the blind world, carrying their mes- 
sage of knowledge and love, and rousing enthusiasm 
for science, art and the things of God. 

The written thought, the book, may have a great 
and far-reaching influence over a blind person’s soul. 


‘‘T fear the man of one book,” says an ancient 
213 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


writer; that is to say, the man who reads little but 
well, who reads attentively and deeply, saturating 
his mind with the matter before him. This is ex- 
actly the blind man’s attitude to the ‘‘white books”; 
he has not many at his disposal, for they are ex- 
pensive and cumbrous; he reads slowly and con- 
stantly goes over the same ground. With his few 
distractions he can feed on some striking thought 
for days or weeks. What a field for an author’s 
influence! People have been known to say, ‘‘The 
blind do not require scientific or purely literary 
works, because their reading must necessarily be 
so limited. It is more practical for them to depend 
on kindness or the paid services of a reader.” This 
is a strangely superficial idea, but as the opinion has 
been expressed, I will answer it. First of all, thanks 
to circulating libraries,* a great number of books 
come into blind hands. At no very distant date some 
2,000 works, or about 10,000 volumes will be at the 
disposition of the blind population of France, and 
this is no trifling collection; but if it had to be 
restricted to a few dozen really great works of 
antiquity and modern times, even that would mean 
that the blind could read and re-read them at any 
moment, according to their general wishes and 
needs. Lacordaire said of General Drouot: ‘‘A real- 
ly great work was a living being to him, a friend 


*The Valentin Haiiy Association keeps up the ‘‘Braille Library” which 
is open on Wednesdays from two to five at 31 Avenue de Breteuil, Paris. It 
contains more than 7,000 volumes in raised characters. Most of these are in 
manuscript, as the Braille books are expensive to print, the contents of a 
3.50 frs (2s. 11d.) volume requiring twelve volumes in octavo at 3 frs 
(2s. 6d.) each, or 36 frs (£1 8s. 10d.) in all. Hence it is not possible to pub- 
lish for the blind any but absolutely necessary books, such as educational 
works or prayer books; the price of merely useful or agreeable books would 
be prohibitive in most cases, blindness being most prevalent among the 
poorer classes. That is the reason that many ladies living in the world 
have learned the Braille characters, so as to copy useful and amusing books 
for the blind, which are to be had in librairies all over France. 


214 


PRINTING OF THE ‘‘WHITE BOOKS” 


whom every evening he admitted to his heart of 
hearts. To think his own thoughts as he read a real 
book, to take it up and lay it down while he ab- 
sorbed and retained its very perfume, was to 
him, as to all who understand this kind of naive 
- sensuousness, the purest of pleasures. Time flies as 
we blend our thoughts with the aspiring thoughts 
of another, tears fill our eyes, and we thank God for 
His goodness in allowing fleeting human thoughts 
to live for ever with the life of truth.” If this be, 
as it is, true of the contact of one human intelli- 
gence with another, what shall we say of sacred 
books and of the best among devotional ones? 
‘‘The Imitation,” ‘‘The Introduction to a Devout 
Life,” ‘‘ Meditations on the Gospels,” ‘‘The Life of 
Saint Theresa,” these, next to the Holy Scriptures, 
are the books which we can best enjoy alone. The 
soul of the blind man, like that of his happier 
brothers, is helped and strengthened in his inter- 
course with almighty God by attentive and serious 
reading, a very different thing from passive lis- 
tening to another’s voice. Whether we be absorbed 
or weary, enthusiastic or discouraged, it is still a 
comfort to take up the beloved book and find the 
thought which interprets our own; we feed on it and 
quench our thirst in the solitude of our own hearts. 

Then there are those among the blind who are 
deaf also; darkness to them brought silence with it, 
they can only be addressed by artificial means, and 
some cannot be made to hear in any way. This was 
the case with a holy religious, Fr Joseph-Célestin, 
a Capuchin of Chambéry, who lost his sight and 
_ hearing when a missionary in the Seychelles. He 
writes: ‘‘Since my return [from Lourdes] I did not 


cease invoking the Immaculate Virgin. Last year, 
215 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


as I could not go back on the anniversary of my 
pilgrimage, I said to her: ‘ Will younot grant meany- 
thing? I can no longer bear my walled-in prison!’ 
That very evening one of our fathers from Paris 
sent me a sheet of Braille alphabet. The Superior 
said to me: ‘This method seems very difficult, try 
if it can be of any use to you. I will send for one of 
our fathers from the convent at Thonon to accom- 
pany you to Lausanne.’ I felt this was the grace I 
had prayed for in the morning. Despite my fifty 
years and bad memory I devoured the alphabet in 
a few hours... . How can I express my joy at being 
able to read and write in Braille? My life is com- 
pletely changed; I have books, every Sunday I get 
the pleasant distraction of ‘The Braille Review,’ 
I begin to write and receive letters, I forget my 
affliction, and live again. The terrible isolation, the 
long, mournful nights, the death-like silence of the 
grave, are over, and instead have come resurrec- 
tion, the return to life, light, liberty and intelli- 
gence! The captive sees his fetters fall to the 
ground! Blessed be God for the great mercy He has 
shown me; I unite my gratitude with that of all the 
blind, to thank Him for inspiring Louis Braille with 
such a method. Now I no longer feel blind, I have 
friends close by, day and night. I live in the most 
complete silence, and only feel the rays of the sun 
I cannot see. This would be the most terrible lone- 
liness were it not sweetened by the thoughts of God 
and the comfort I get from the Braille. Since I can 
work, my life is brighter, and I almost begin to 
think myself lucky.” These are some of the mar- 
vels brought about by the ‘‘ White Books.” 

Of all the forms of encouragement which help us 


to pass certain stages of our life, is any higher than 
216 


PRINTING OF THE ‘‘ WHITE BOOKS” 


a book by a beloved author, consulted as a friend? 
Everything has a different aspect and meaning; 
trials and difficulties diminish, at any rate for the 
moment. Doubtless they do not really change, 
but their disturbing influence is lessened, and that 
is a great step towards surmounting them. It is of 
manifest importance to give the blind as much of 
such comfort as possible. It is as great a mistake to 
think that people can live on material necessities 
only, as it is to imagine that spiritual needs enable 
us to ignore the wants of the body. It is dangerous 
to forget that a man is not a being of one substance, 
and that soul and body react on each other; if 
peace and equilibrium are to be maintained, the 
double nature of man must be provided for. Even 
for those destined to humble walks of life, it is 
important that their ideas should be trained, for 
the mind has a great deal to do with the way 
material needs are supplied. The Valentin Haty 
Association, which largely employs the Blind Nuns’ 
Printing Establishment, is strongly imbued with 
these views; knowing what hope and energy mean 
to the blind, whose life is generally hard and lonely, 
the Association endeavours to supply them, through 
books and periodicals, with a world of wholesome, 
generous and vigorous ideas. That is why, at the 
risk of appearing utopian, the Association con- 
stantly publishes books and periodicals, and multi- 
plies circulating libraries in every direction with as 
much energy as it strives to find means of livelihood 
for the blind. The Community of Saint Paul is an 
invaluable auxiliary to the Valentin Haiiy Asso- 
_ ciation, which thus has a body of intelligent and de- 
voted helpers working for the same interest. In re- 


turn the work given out is fairly remunerative to 
217 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 

the convent. In the little printing-room of the 
“White Books” every one works in the dark; they 
do not stop when, at the close of the short winter’s 
day, night falls long before the bell has rung for 
silence; for light and darkness are all one to them. 
The little workshop, wrapped in twilight, is a shin- 
ing generator of light to those who have to walk 
through life with no rays but from the intellect. 
Let us shed light on them abundantly, that they too 
may have their share of joy. 


218 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


BOOK III. The Nuns 
@, I. Religious Vocation 


EOPLE of superficial views generally have 

answers as prompt as they are unsatisfactory 

to all questions; no psychological problems 
exist for them long enough to dwell in their mind 
or to determine their opinion. If religious vocation 
be under discussion, they will say, ‘‘Convents are 
peopled with women physically deformed, weak in 
intellect, disappointed inlove, or soured by trouble.” 
But this summary answer explains nothing, for 
every dayconvents open their doors to women who 
are as charming in mind as in body, absolutely sane, 
and some of them at the earliest dawn of woman- 
hood. How do such opinions arise? It would seem 
that life, by some mirage, only shows such objectors 
her happy side; they glance at the vows of poverty, 
chastity and obedience, and without further reflec- 
tion condemn them as against ‘nature; forgetting, 
or having never understood, that such sacrifices 
bring down magnificent compensation, offered as 
they are to no abstract idea, but to a real Being, 
the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, beloved and 
served as God and Man. It is quite true that re- 
ligious vows, founded on those evangelical counsels 
which were addressed to individuals and not to 
mankind as a whole, are not within the attainment 
of all; but this does not makethem ‘‘against nature,” 
but only above and beyond ordinary human nature, 
_ which is by no means the same thing.* It follows 


*On such subjects it is essential to define the exact sense in which words 
are employed. If by ‘‘nature’” we understand merely ‘‘instinct,” then it is 
true that the vows of religion are diametrically opposed to it. But if we take 

19 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


that, if these views upset and destroyed moral equili- 
brium, if they were diametrically opposed to the 
basis of human nature, they would expose mankind 
to such moral tortures that only a miracle could 
render them bearable. This I do not believe to be 
the case. The kind of life resulting from such con- 
ceptions is certainly beyond most human inclination, 
but it is not really in contradiction with man’s 
nature; for such an existence vocation is of course 
a necessity, but what can we really achieve in life 
without a special vocation? We will now pause and 
consider what constitutes religious vocation, and 


what are the feelings which inspire it.* 


the word in its fuller, higher sense, as constituting the entire man, soul as 
well as body, then his human side is not distorted and baulked, but idealized 
and rendered supernatural. Are we not conscious of varied degrees of power 
within ourselves? To say that we act “against nature” when we start our 
lives on a higher plane, is equivalent to saying that it is ‘‘against nature” 
to control our physical instincts by our reason, and that the man who does 
so govern them is in every instance worse off than his brother who follows 
them without restraint. Perhaps I shall better express my meaning by sum- 
ming it up: nothing which helps the soul to rise can be ‘‘against nature,” 
because the tendency of human beings is always to aspire, and the rallying 
cry of ‘‘Excelsior!” is not and never can be unnatural. I am glad to be able 
to call St Thomas to witness this (commentary by Professor Roure): ‘‘‘ When 
several elements,’ says the Saint, ‘go to make up a whole, it will happen 
that one thing will suit one element in particular, and another will blend 
with the whole, whence it follows that, though it be natural for concupis- 
cence to seek sensible delectation, if this appetite be considered as human, 
it becomes natural for it to seek its object under the control of reason. Thus 
the blind impulse which would carry it to its object is not naturally a human 
one, and it would be more correct to say that from this point of view it is 
against human nature.’” It is good and right for man to enjoy beautiful 
sounds and colours, because it is natural; but sensuousness, which is the 
moving power in animals, must be subordinate to the empire of reason in 
man, the thinking being. Consequently, every impulse of sense uncontrolled 
or undominated by reason is really ‘against nature,’ and is a disorder, an 
infraction of rule, and a moral defection. It is our business to subordinate 
the inferior to the superior faculties. But if Christianity opposes nature, it 
is not to destroy, but to elevate it and bring it within due bounds. In spite 
of all that has been said to the contrary, Christianity does not act ‘against 
nature,’ but perfects our humanity. To this the doctrines tend, which preach 
renunciation, abnegation, or even an effort in these directions, and they all 
teach the same lesson. But, for the sake of clearness and simplicity, tradi- 
tional religious morality lays its foundations and restrictions, not in our 
human nature which is on probation, but in the spiritual domain, and if 
human nature would conform to these rules it would be perfect.”—Lucien 
Roure, S.J., ‘‘Contemporary Views on Morals.” 

* Perhaps it will be necessary to state at the beginning (although I repeat 
it often as I go on) that the ‘‘efficient” cause of religious vocation, the 

Zz 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


We often come across young girls who, quite out- 
side mysticism, have a natural shrinking from mar- 
riage. With some it may come from a dread of the 
unknown, or from repugnance; with others it may 
merely imply avoidance of cares and a wish forinde- 
pendence. Hence celibacy may be the normal con- 
dition for some individuals. People quote Genesis: 
**It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him 
a help like unto himself”; and ‘‘Man shall leave 
father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and 
they shall be two in one flesh.” Yes, God destined 
man and woman for each other, and that united life 
would have been as easy as everything else if crea- 
tion had obeyed the Divine plan. But, since the Fall, 
with its resulting physical and moral calamities, 
another fiat has gone forth. ‘‘I will multiply thy 
sorrows and thy conceptions; in sorrow shalt thou 
bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy 
husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over 
thee.” The union of sexes and life in common en- 
tail special sacrifices upon women; marriage requires 
a special vocation as a development of human life.* 
But, say the objectors, you forget love and the joy 


motive power and mainstay of the three vows, is incontestibly the love of 
God and an intense devotion to the Person of our Sayiour Jesus Christ. 
I shall return to this statement several times, but perhaps it is advisable to 
start by putting it forcibly, in order that my readers may follow me in my 
subsequent analysis. In these days of hurry people pass lightly over the 
most important considerations. Certain persons are accustomed to class 
religious vocation among the peculiarities and anomalies of the human mind, 
and married life as a normal condition calling for no special vocation. Such 
persons may not pay much attention to what I write, and may imagine, 
quite wrongly, that I consider vocation as an ordinary and simple matter, 
shorn of anything supernatural. No, it is manifest that the three vows im- 
pose very real sacrifices, but not, correctly speaking, ‘‘unnatural” or un- 
reasonable ones. That is all I wish to prove. And further, I would beg the 
reader who has followed me so far, to suspend his judgement until he has read 
the chapter on “Religious Life,” which is practically the sequel to this. 
Finally I, as a humble layman, must disavow any presumptuous attempt on 
my own part to make these two chapters into a theological and ascetic 
treatise on the subject. 

*Some catechisms (Couturier, Nantes, Comminges and Rodez) contain 
advice upon marriage, celibacy and or 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


of living with the beloved! Yes, at the bottom of 
every human heart is the longing to be always near 
some one who belongs to you, and to whom you 
have given yourself, completing each other and each 
becoming the other’s true helpmate. ‘‘ We have been 
together for five days,” writes Ozanam; ‘‘peace and 
serenity fill that heart which you remember was al- 
ways seeking causes for suffering! I let myself be 
happy—I count neither hours nor days. Time is 
nothing to me. What matters the futureP Happi- 
ness is here and now. Eternity is with us... . I 
understand heaven. Every day I find fresh qualities 
in my wife, and my debt to Providence grows. .. . 
There is more than a contract in marriage; above 
all there is sacrifice, a double sacrifice; the woman 
gives up what God has given her and she can never 
know again: her mother’s care, her first freshness, 
perhaps her health, and that power of loving which 
women know but once; the man in his turn sacri- 
fices the liberty of youth, those incomparable years 
for ever past, the strength of devotion to one wo- 
man which only exists in youth, and the efforts of 
first love to make her life brilliant and happy. Man 
can do this but once, between the ages of twenty 
and thirty, a little earlier or later, perhaps never! 
. . « Thatis why I call Christian marriage a double 
sacrifice; it is like a symbol of two cups: one contains 
virtue, modesty and innocence; the other first love, 
devotion and the immortal dedication of the man 
to that weaker creature he has known since yester- 
day and will gladly spend his life with; these cups 
must be full, if the union is to be holy and blessed 
by heaven.” 

But love does not always precede marriage; 


many unions are SES and planned by pru- 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


dent friends because of their suitability. Love is 
left out, but will come later. Such arrangements 
are wise and admirable, as are all sincere hopes, 
but supposing love does not follow? What happens 
when even very real and pure love is over? Wise, 
prudent people, you who consider the religious life 
as an abnormal state, and marriage as the natural 
development of life calling for no special vocation, 
but coming as growth comes, I suppose you will 
not deny that the glamour of love may disappearP 
You know this, perhaps have experienced it in 
your own lives. After a few months, or years, if 
you will, of long, sweet companionship, a book be- 
comes first pleasant and then necessary: ‘‘It is so 
charming to read together,” that is, to interpose 
another’s thoughts between us. ‘‘It is so delightful 
to work together,” that is, to occupy ourselves. 
Later, the presence of children is craved for, and 
if this be denied, the society of friends is sought 
from time to time, then oftener, and at last every 
day. Finally, the most commonplace visitor will be 
welcome, if only to interrupt the téte-a-téte. Is not 
this satiety and disillusionment? Do you think that 
ardent, intense love still lives in such a union, with 
its transfiguring charm? Our minds and, alas, our 
hearts are like deceptive modern apartments—they 
seem vast and spacious as we sit in the drawing- 
room, but when we have been all over them, and 
become intimate enough to open all the doors, the 
glamour vanishes! We perceive that the rooms are 
few and small, ‘they can all be explored in no time, 
and what looked like a charming vista from where 
we sat is enclosed between two doors. We have 
seen everything. We can no longer amuse ourselves 
with imagining all sorts of wonders beyond our ken. 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Still, we are possessed with the wish to know more 
and penetrate still farther; we always imagine that 
we shall be happier when we have said everything 
and had everything said to us in return, forgetting 
that the charm lay in what was not said at all. Is 
not our great disease the craving to dissect what 
we love, and the inability to love when we have 
done so? We love the ideal which we make our- 
selves. This contradiction, which is a constant 
grief, only ceases with regard to God; the better we 
know Him, the deeper grows our love. He is infinite 
Perfection, and we can always find something more 
in him to know and to love. As for us poor mortals, 
if we wish our houses to remain attractive, we had 
better neither exhibit nor explore them too com- 
pletely. If we wish to retain charm and influence 
ourselves, let us refrain from saying or hearing 
everything. Or else let us be courageous and 
strive without ceasing to make ourselves greater 
and nobler, so that the more we are known the 
wider will be the untrodden field of our nature. 

If progress and intellectual perfection* be the 
condition of constancy in the affections, how can 
love last in some marriages? Does it not disappear 
after a year or two? But the trials of marriage and 
life in common remain, with all the divergencies 
of character, ideas and feelings. Does not the help 
and advice we counted on for life fail us at the most 
critical moments, for the very reason that we look 


to the person who promised to be our helper and 


* “ How is it possible not to understand that even here on earth love, as 
well as science, consists in seeing the creature, not as it is, but as it might 
be? The poetry of love can see, behind the veil of the flesh, the idea of God 
in the soul, to which the whole being is attuned; and love is only blind, and 
creatures deceptive, when they fall short of the likeness to God in which He 
created them. As to those noble beings who aim at their true fulfilment in 
God, the love we give them is not blind, it is the only love which has eyes.” 
—Gratry, ‘‘De la Connaissance de Il’ Ame.” 

224 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


adviser? We have to face our problems alone. Oh, 
if they dared speak, how many women, after ten or 
fifteen years of marriage, would confess that their 
children are much more to them than their hus- 
bands, who are often a source of grief or, at least, 
of trouble and perplexity to them! It is true that 
marriage must not be entered upon for selfish mo- 
tives alone, the family has to be thought of, and 
the great law of humanity is ‘‘Grow and multiply”; 
we do not bring up our children for ourselves, and 
we must not seek in marriage the happiness of 
pleasure only (bonheur-jouissance). In spite of 
their disappointments many married people are 
where Providence evidently intended them to be; 
God intended them for a life of trial, and meant 
them to only know the joys of abnegation. To all 
this I heartily agree, but in the face of such reason- 
ing, it must not be denied that marriage demands 
great sacrifices of women, and therefore needs a 
special vocation, or call, from God. Mgr Bougaud 
speaks with warmth and feeling of the powerless- 
ness of human love to consolidate family ties with- 
out religion: 

‘*As family life springs from human affection, no- 
thing would seem easier than to create family hap- 
piness. And yet if you consult history or experience, 
you will see that it is not so. In a thing which seems 
so easy and so sweet, the human heart has failed 
signally. Man has made splendid efforts, he has had 
sublime impulses and moments, but he has failed. 
He has loved for a time, but what he could not 
compass was to love for long, or for ever, in the di- 
vine solitude of unity. He can say, ‘I love you,’ 
but has hardly ever been able to say, ‘You only, 


and for ever.’ This it is which has been perhaps 
225 15 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


the darkest cloud over humanity. All our bitterest 
tears flow from this source. Man has long struggled 
with this conviction and refused to admit it; but he 
has had to yield to evidence. . . . That is one reason 
why love is so rare on earth; its very sublimity is its 
limit. Does any creature live, however marvellously 
endowed, who can nourish such a flame?P... This 
is the real problem of marriage. Perhaps you think 
it hard to rein in the invading flow of passion; not 
so; the difficulty is to prevent it ebbing away. Love 
must be restrained, kept within insurmountable bar- 
riers, preserved chaste and pure; its purity will keep 
it more lasting, more sweet and more profound. But 
this is where, without the help of God, you are 
powerless. And what is a thousand times harder 
is to keep love ever growing and to feed an ever- 
spreading flame. . . . Religion brings the young man 
and the young girl to the foot of the altar; she teaches 
the young girl to say, ‘O my God, I am young and 
beloved; but I know my nothingness, and that I am 
only a fragile flower incapable of keeping for ever 
the love that has been given me. O my God, open 
our souls to Love Eternal, and our eyes to Uncreated 
Beauty.’ Then the scales fall from their eyes, and 
behind the mortal features soon to decay they see 
the real beauty of a soul redeemed by Jesus Christ, 
resting for a time on earth, and already bearing in 
its innermost core the great God who made it for 
Himself. Whoshall say what food such thoughts give 
to these young hearts? Will they not be protected 
against those gross snares, where love expires that 
called itself eternalP Age may come withall its bodily 
changes, but the soul grows daily, its beauty shining 


more and more as it draws near to eternity.” * 


* Bougaud, ‘‘ Le Christianisme et les Temps présents,”’ vol. I. 
226 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


To anyone who really reflects and endeavours to 
judge things for himself without the medium of con- 
ventional words, marriage must be admitted to 
require a serious and mature vocation. To love, 
still less to hope for love, is no substitute for such a 
vocation nor the proof of one; it may pass, but 
physical and moral sufferings remain. Thus it fol- 
lows that there is more uncertainty on the threshold 
of marriage than on the eve of religious profession. 
Nothing is more solemn to the thinking man than 
the sight of a young girl about to launch out into 
the unknown. As we look at the bride—a queen 
to-day, a victim perhaps to be—can we forget that 
flowers, so lately full of scent and beauty, must 
wither and fall, and that the lovely little ephemera 
dies in giving birthP The happiness which we pro- 
mise that dear child with so much assurance may 
have its flaws. She must give herself with all her 
heart, her youth, her beauty and her illusions; she 
must be pure, loving and prepared to sacrifice all to 
wifely duty. This is as it should be, but what is 
offered her in exchange? Jewels, dresses probably 
paid for out of her own dowry, a few passing compli- 
ments, a semblance of independence, a husband who 
is almost a stranger, and perhaps a long course of 
physical and moralsuffering, which you sceptics who 
call the religious life ‘‘against nature” and mar- 
riage a perfectly simple and natural state would 
never have the courage to endure. ‘‘ You who wept 
for your daughter as if she were dead and buried 
on the day she espoused our Lord, and refused the 
husband you had chosen for her, do you guess the 
secret thoughts of the woman who did marry him? 
Let me tell you what they were, for I have often 


heard them. ‘If young girls under their mother’s 
227 15a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


wing knew what I know and realized what can be 
hidden in such men’s natures, there would not be 
enough convents in the whole world for us to take 
refuge in from the possibility of such despair.’.. . 
Yes, we all know it! Thus speak hundreds of mise- 
able women, drawn to irreparable sorrow by the 
adorable nameof loveandthesacred word ‘home.’” * 
Even without reaching such extremities, many wo- 
men are prevented by their husbands’ characters 
and views from a real union of souls. They are only 
united in body, and only find support and advice on 
material subjects. In matters of the heart they are 
alone, and this in cases where the marriage began 
in what is called mutual attraction. 

Of course we must not despise nor belittle any 
of God’s gifts to man. Real love is a blessed and 
solemn thing, but in most cases only a passing 
episode in our existence, and when we are con- 
fronted with those who would make it the whole 
background of life, is it not wise to go a little below 
the surface, and remind them that love passes, and 
that it is dangerous to depend on it for all, since in 
old age the most devoted couples have only a feeble 
shadow of their past to remember? They still love 
each other, but with a difference. Love no longer 
transforms everything, veiling defects of character, 
softening friction, hiding intellectual shortcomings; 
now every drawback is seen and felt acutely, they 
bear with one another, perhaps willingly, but prin- 
cipally because they know that mutual concessions 
are due, because, in one word, it is their duty, and 
they have a true vocation for marriage. What is 
really against nature is a lonely life, especially for 


women, who require support and to feel affection 


* Gratry, ‘‘Henry Perreyve.” 
228 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


around them. Women dread facing the difficulties 
of daily life alone; except in exceptional cases, they 
pine and dwindle in loneliness, or else give up all 
attempt at energy, and lapse into quiescence. In the 
convent the dread of growing old has lost its sting, 
and the haunting fear of dying alone, which mar- 
riage cannot always avert, is laid to rest. For life 
to be happy it must be fruitful. Human beings can- 
not find happiness in solitude and egoism; none of 
man’s endowments are intended for himself alone, 
he must share and transmit all he has received, his 
gifts are a trust and not a possession. To accomplish 
his destiny and find true happiness he must give 
birth to something which proceeds from himself 
and will perpetuate him. But if the founding of a 
family be the ordinary and primitive means of 
transmitting our identity and our life, it is not the 
sole one. Only a superficial mind will fail to under- 
stand that virginity also may be fruitful; fruitful in 
example, in the training of souls, in self-abnegation 
and in complete devotion to the poor and miserable 
who have no natural protectors. Such devotion has, 
in a sense, the power of transmitting what is best 
in life and perpetuating our own individuality. And 
is there no fruitfulness in prayer? Nothing is so 
fruitful in its results, although it is a common error 
constantly to divide contemplation from action. 
Contemplative prayer acts, in a way, on God Him- 
self, who is the Essence of Being. It is we who are 
usually too sluggish and material to understand 
these truths. 

What is there so extraordinary in the vow of 
obedience? Are we not everywhere in the hands of 
others wiser than ourselves? Do not death and ill- 
ness govern life, irrespective of our will? Is it not 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


a truism to repeat that happiness can never be 
found in licence and caprice? Indulging every pass- 
ing whim does not necessarily make us any happier. 
Whatever happiness exists in life is to be found in 
the devotion of ourselves, our intelligence and our 
will to some thing, person or idea which we love 
better than ourselves, and which is stronger than 
our own will. The artist, the student, the man of 
action are certainly not free as long as they attempt 
to live a full and complete life and to realize and 
attain an ideal. They are forced to act, not on the 
caprice of the moment, but in arbitrary pursuit of 
their aim; the ideal they set before them of choice, 
becomes imperiously tyrannical. Even the mother 
of a family, if she intends to fulfil her mission, can- 
not always be a free agent between her husband 
and her children. She obeys no written rule, but is 
none the less obliged to consult the wishes of others 
before her own, and to conform her life to circum- 
stances; it does not follow because her duties are 
not regulated by a previously arranged time-table, 
that her time is any the more her own. After all, is 
‘*choice” really so dear to the human mind?* 
Many men choose professions and careers where 
their work is clearly defined, and does not call for 
too much risk, initiative or responsibility; in intel- 
lectual pursuits certain specific methods are fol- 
lowed to ensure success, but also to avoid the onus 
of selection. The great problem to conscientious 


* If we sift certain sentiments and inclinations to their foundation, it will 
not be difficult to prove that, despite all said to the contrary, man dreads 
liberty. Do my readers remember the awful apostrophe which Dostoievsky 
puts in the mouth of the Grand Inquisitor? He is addressing our Saviour, 
who has returned to earth and has been imprisoned in Seville by the In- 
quisition: ‘‘ Thou seekest to wander through the world empty-handed, offer- 
ing men a promise which their inborn infirmity and foolishness misunder- 
stands, a fearful promise of freedom, for men have never found anything so 
intolerable as absolute liberty !”—Dostoievsky, ‘‘Les Fréres Karamazow.” 


230 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


natures is to know how far their obligations and 
their strength ought to carry them, and where their 
real duty lies. Have I done all I could and ought to 
havedone? Havel given my all? These are haunting 
questions which the vow of obedience settles once 
and for all. Hence the vow is not so abnormal 
and contrary to nature as some people imagine. 
We do not allude to the ‘‘intellectuels” who pro- 
fess to have explored the whole of life and found 
it empty. They are disgusted with everything and 
have lost their will power; but all sane and unpre- 
judiced human beings know that if man has free 
will he is also hampered by circumstances and held 
back by conscience and considerations of duty; these 
must present themselves to him as limits, whatso- 
ever be the standard he follows. Happiness does 
not consist in having no master: we are always the 
servants of some one or thing; but surely it is a joy 
to have chosen our Master willingly, with open 
eyes, and to serve Him with love. No one is so 
well protected from weariness and deception as a 
nun—God does not deceive, He is never weary, 
He never changes, and she has given herself to 
Him. She has tested her vocation, with the option 
of drawing back if the human element between God 
and her soul (her superiors) should have seemed 
uncongenial to her nature and disposition. The 
married woman cannot say as much. It is true that 
she can look to God above her earthly lord and 
master, and serve Him in the married state, but for 
this her piety must be deep indeed. 

It is often quoted as surprising that many con- 
fessors have great influence over their female peni- 
tents,* but considering how marriages are made it 


* This, of course, applies to certain countries only. 


- 231 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


seems quite natural. It is not wonderful that many 
a wretched young wife quickly awakes from her 
dream; she discovers that her husband is more or 
less unfaithful, or not what she imagined or ex- 
pected him to be. She feels a want in her life, per- 
haps her grief leads to despair. Then the Church 
pacifies and calms her; in the confessional a wise 
priest will speak in the name of our Saviour and 
exhort her to courage and patience. He will show 
her where, high above all passing things, lies the 
path of duty and service to that Master who will 
never deceive or betray her. He will never grow 
weary; He will always accept human service and 
obedience. 

There remains poverty. Poverty comprises two 
things: renunciation of personal possessions, giving 
up all the comforts and pleasures not allowed by 
the Rule and, where the option is given, choosing 
even on trifling occasions the lowest place. If this 
standard be really lived up to, it means a high ideal, 
but there is nothing in it ‘‘against nature.” For 
what man, however little of a philosopher, estimates 
happiness by the possession of goods? Is not the use 
of them sufficient to the wise man? And although 
wise men may be rare, we cannot say that they are 
‘‘against nature.” What is really essential to peace 
of mind and heart is the assurance of daily bread 
and the bare necessaries of life; this feeling of cer- 
tainty suffices, whether it be based on a patrimony, 
or on faith in these words: ‘‘For your Father 
knoweth that you have need of these things. Seek 
ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and 
all these things will be added unto you.” * 

When an all-satisfying idea, or a great love, has 


* Matt. vi. 
232 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


taken possession of our heart and mind, it matters 
little to our happiness (I mean, our real, deep, 
essential happiness, not our little surface joys) 
whether we eat this or that, wear clothes of such 
and such a colour or material, sleep on straw or on 
a mattress, or even whether we own the fork we 
eat with, or the rosary on which wesay our prayers. 
I hope no one will reproach me with reasoning 
merely as a philosopher or a theorist, an utopian 
or a blind man, an incomplete individual who can 
only appreciate part of the joys of this life; I am 
arguing from the standpoint of the normal man or 
woman for whom the things of this world have a 
great attraction and zest. Let us understand each 
other; I do not say that the pleasures of sense, 
comfort and luxury, go for nothing; alas! I am 
neither philosophical enough, nor sufficiently numb- 
ed by blindness, to be more indifferent to them 
than many other people; I merely contend that 
these pleasures are not essential to human nature, 
or radically necessary to our happiness, and that 
every time we have the courage to give them up 
for some higher motive, we do not lose, but gain 
by the sacrifice. This is so true, that we constantly 
see scientists and unsuccessful inventors abandon- 
ing all material advantages, quite independently of 
any religious motive, for the sake of pursuing the 
idea which possesses them, be it truth or illusion. 
And if their dream come true, and they even ap- 
proach it, their sacrifice is sufficiently rewarded. 
But, say the objectors, you are speaking as a man, 
your scientists and seekers after truth are men also; 
a young, attractive woman requires a certain 
amount of dress and luxury, as a real need of her 


nature; it is abnormal to deny it to her, and force 
233 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


her to spend the years of her youth in a heavy, 
ugly, shapeless garment, which robs her of all in- 
dividuality. Of course this is a sacrifice, and a heavy 
one, to some women; far be it from me to belittle 
it! But apart from the fact that they offer it to the 
Supreme Being, who can give them the courage to 
perform actions really ‘‘against nature” (as the 
martyrs have repeatedly proved), I still maintain 
that words must not be used in a wrong sense. This 
renunciation is poignant, difficult, heroic, and you 
may think it superogatory, but it is not ‘‘against 
nature,” it does not deprive a human being of any 
essential, and happiness is not really dependent on 
dress. We must not lightly use the expression 
‘‘against nature,” or, what comes to the same thing, 
use it in describing things which may restrict our in- 
clinations without necessarily stunting our human 
nature. Among these is voluntary poverty, the 
poverty of humility as well as the lack of material 
possessions. Putting on one side those socialist drea- 
mers who refuse to own anything individually in 
order to arrive at an equal division of property—a 
consummation only possible in a religious com- 
munity—we know moralists teach that moderation 
in our desires and wishes is the only road to happi- 
ness. Has not our own experience proved hundreds 
of times that money may bring with it the very re- 
verse of contentment? On a journey, it is not only 
the luxury of the railway carriages and the com- 
fort of the places we stop at (even if we travel in 
so-called ‘‘trains de luxe”) that make the joys of 
travel. Whether the journey be through life, or 
round the world, it is our own feelings, and the 
thoughts and ideas we have been careful to impreg- 


nate ourselves with, that make us forget all our 
234 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


fatigue, uncomfortable railway carriages, badly laid 
roads and indifferent inns. 

I cannot understand people condemning the reli- 
gious vows as unnatural and unreasonable, who 
themselves have fed on a literature of refined pes- 
simism, which perpetually demonstrates the evan- 
escence of love, the satiety after the possession of 
what has been ardently pursued and the absolute 
inability of money to procure real happiness. 

A further objection is that in youth it is not always 
possible to have fixed views on life; youth is the 
time for love, and all-powerful love illumines and 
transfigures the world. The power of love is im- 
mense and incontestable, but even if we put aside 
the supernatural motive* which can neutralize and 
counteract even the power of love, is it really certain 
that every one really knows what love is? Is love 
always alluring P This has by no means been proved. 
A tendency to pessimism, though less frequent, is 
as natural as a tendency to optimism, and there are 
two ways of considering the value of life. There 
is analysis or deduction which shows by experi- 
ence that living is not in itself an aim, since life 
cannot satisfy us completely. And then there is that 
enthusiasm for great and noble things, or the ser- 
vice of God, which carries the soul in one grand 
impetus up into the higher regions, and makes the 
so-called joys of life look uncertain and insignifi- 
cant. It is difficult to satisfy the soul when it has 


***T have often heard people say,” writes Father Chocarne, ‘‘ that we 
become priests or religious too early in life, and pledge our lives before we 
know ourselves or the world, and that when our eyes are opened to the ter- 
rible truth it is too late. I do not at all share this view; I believe that happily a 
young man may understand the things of God, which are all-sufficing, even 
- without knowing the world. If he be faithful, the love of God will always 
be uppermost in his heart; and I do not see why, if men choose their com- 
panions in their first freshness, God should have to choose His spouses from 
among those souls who are stale, tainted or tired of life.” 


235 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


been in contact with the Infinite. Montalembert 
speaks of such souls with all his eloquence: ‘‘ With 
strength they receive light, wisdom and real power 
of judgement. Who has taught them the secret of 
painP Who has taught these pure and passionate 
creatures, at an age when the heart first begins to be 
devoured by an insatiable longing for human tender- 
ness and sympathy, that their thirst can never be 
assuaged in this world? Who has revealed to them 
the despicable fragility of human affection, even 
when noblest and sweetest, tenderest and most deep- 
seated; of that human affection which thought itself 
immortal, and held the highest place in the now 
empty heartP They can only have learnt such les- 
sons by an instinct of divine affranchisement, which 
has taken them out of this world to set them free. 
They are saved all the disillusion, scorn and be- 
trayals, which beset the way of love and sometimes 
lead, after all our efforts and hopes, to death in life. 
They have guessed at the enemy’s wiles, and have 
baffled and conquered him; they have escaped for 
ever: ‘Anima nostra sicut passer erepta est; laqueus 
contritus est, et nos liberati sumus!’ They are going 
to offer their heart to God in its first freshness, to 
surrender to Him all the treasures of love which 
they have refused to man. They are going to be 
buried and consumed in voluntary renunciation and 
abnegation. They tell us they have found peace 
and joy, and that in self-sacrifice lies the perfection 
of love. They have kept their heart free for One 
who cannot change or betray. In His service they 
will find consolations worth the price they paid and 
joys which are not cloudless, because that would 
make them of no worth, but whose sweetness and 


savour will follow them to the grave.” * 


* Montalembert, ‘‘ Les Moines d’Occident,” vol. V. 
236 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


Love of the ideal may exist with a certain spirit 
of critical analysis, and both may lead to the con- 
vent. After expecting to realize our ideal in life, 
we soon discover that, instead of being helped to- 
wards perfection, we are hindered and delayed by 
people and events, and we may be obliged to live 
in commonplace and trivial surroundings. In a 
convent a young girl hopes to find chosen souls, 
attuned to her own, and sharing her aspirations, 
she hopes to be helped on the road to perfection 
and to an intimate love of God. When heart, mind 
and soul are constantly full of one thought, we long 
to speak of it; but a kind of shyness prevents us 
talking to indifferent people who breathe a different 
atmosphere. With the exception of her confessor, 
and perhaps a woman friend, a girl of spiritual 
ideals, repelled and disgusted by passing, common- 
place trifles, and longing to get nearer to God, will 
feel herself alone; she hopes to find in the convent 
the environment which is lacking to her in that 
world where she feels herself a stranger. In many, 
as I have said before, there is the wish to escape the 
responsibility of a decision or choice in life; by ex- 
perience or intuition, they learn that obedience 
will simplify existence and bring them'considerable 
peace of mind. The intimate things of the soul, 
such as happiness and sacrifice, are essentially sub- 
jective; the intensity of pleasure or renunciation 
depends less on the value of their object, than on 
the impression we receive of it. 

I think the same may be said of the events of 
life; their influence on us is also subjective. We 

have little independence of mind where events, 
important to ourselves, are concerned. It always 


seems (and this impression must be stronger in a 
237 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


woman or a young girl) that our life must take the 
same direction as that of some other person under 
the same circumstances, and that a certain event 
will have the same influence on us as on our friends. 
Thuswe passionately dread or wish for things, which 
in themselves have little importance; we stop at 
nothing to acquire or escape them. 

Many a young girl must see traces of lassitude 
or regret in a companion, perhaps her mother or 
elder sister. After dreams of undying love, many a 
one has seen her father unkind, even brutal; she 
has surprised her mother in tears after quarrels 
with him, and the poor child says to herself: ‘‘ Don’t 
they love each other P” She has seen her elder sister 
or greatest friend, after a few months of marriage, 
gradually avoid a téte-a-téte with her husband, and 
come back to her friends, her books and flowers 
with less freedom, but a rather sad lingering. ‘‘Is 
it over already?” she thinks. She has watched de- 
solate, broken-hearted widowsand widowers(when 
the first burst of grief was passed), forgetting, marry- 
ing, and talking of their happiness. ‘‘Love is not 
what I thought it,” she says sadly, ‘‘there is no 
such thing.” Then she takes down from her book- 
shelf a beautiful little book given to her on her 
First Communion Day, and there, surrounded by 
flowers and pretty trifles, alone in her bedroom 
whose carefully guarded door has never opened to 
admit Schopenhauer nor Maupassant, Job nor 
Ecclesiastes, there, I say, she reads and meditates 
on these words: ‘‘ Here hast thou no abiding city, 
and wherever thou mayest be, thou art a stranger 
and a pilgrim, nor wilt thou ever have rest, except 
thou be interiorly united with Christ.... Why 


standest thou looking about thee here, since this is 
238 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


not the place of thy restP... Shut the door upon 
thee, and call unto thee Jesus, thy Beloved.... 
Stay with Him in thy cell; for nowhere else shalt 
thou find so great peace. . . . Learn to despise ex- 
terior things, and to give thyself to interior things, 
and thou shalt see the Kingdom of God come within 
thee. . . . If thou wilt refuse exterior consolations, 
thou shalt be able to apply thy mind to heavenly 
things, and experience frequent interior joy.... 
The love of things created is deceitful and incon- 
stant; the love of Jesus is faithful and enduring... . 
Trust not, nor lean upon a reed full of wind.... 
For all flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof shall 
fade like the flower of grass. ... All things pass 
away, and thou along with them. ... See thou 
cleave not to them, lest thou be ensnared and 
perish. .. . Oftentimes a joyous going abroad be- 
getteth a sorrowful coming home; and a merry 
evening maketh a sad morning. .. . So all carnal 
joys enter pleasantly; but at the last bring remorse 
and death. .. . What canst thou see anywhere that 
can last long under the sun? . . . Thou trustest that 
perchance thou wilt be satisfied; but thou wilt never 
be able to reach it... . Cast off then all earthly 
things... that so thou mayest lay hold on true 
happiness. ... All human comfort is vain and 
short. ... We must not put any great confidence 
in frail and mortal man, useful and beloved though 
he be; nor should we be much grieved if he some- 
times oppose and contradict us.” * 

Some thoughts are like chemicals when they 
come into contact with certain bodies; let but one 
drop fall and its work is done; it penetrates every- 
thing, annihilating and dissolving every impediment 


* “The Imitation.” Authorized translation. 


239 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


it meets with. Those deep thinkers who treat reli- 
gious vocations as abnormal and against nature, and 
consider marriage as so natural that no delibera- 
tion is necessary before embarking on it, those 
people, I repeat, are surprised that the young can 
feel disillusioned about life. .. . Ah! but you should 
have blindfolded the girl of twenty, oratany rate not 
allowed her to read ‘‘The Imitation”! Perhaps you 
thought she would not understand it, or very likely 
you have not read or understood it yourselves. It 
is indeed a truth that even the things of this world 
can easily lead to a convent. Some natures are pre- 
disposed by convent education to a religious voca- 
tion. When from childhood a girl has been wrapped 
in an atmosphere of calm peace and order, she will 
fallnaturally intoregular habits. She has been taught 
to fear the world and its dangers to an almost super- 
stitious extent; the vaguer are her terrors, the more 
they repel her; she fears the future, and though she 
knows that she can save her soul in other walks 
of life, the convent seems inviting and the world 
alarming, and she chooses the former to remain 
in or return to. 

But the motives of vocation which we have 
hitherto examined are, so to speak, secondary or 
natural ones; we must now come to the real, or 
supernatural cause. Natural causes being manifold, 
the primary and efficient motive can only be single, 
that is, God-Unity does not exclude variety, and 
the same love of God can exist in different people 
under different forms or aspects. The Divine call 
is not the same to all: to some it comes imperatively 
as to Philip: ‘‘ Follow Me”; to others as to Andrew 
and Peter: ‘‘Come and see,” that is to say, ‘‘choose.” 


To really understand this subject we must free our 
240 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


minds from society conversations or philosophical 
dissertations about it, and patiently read the lives 
of nuns in their own diaries or letters, or written 
by psychological biographers. 

We might try to question a few intelligent and 
experienced religious or novice-mistresses who have 
a great knowledge of human nature. We should 
then discover that, quite contrary to the received 
idea, the most numerous and lasting vocations are 
direct calls, mystically heard in the soul during si- 
lent prayer. They come under different aspects; 
principally the attraction to virginity, the desire to 
be among ‘‘those undefiled who follow the Lamb,” 
which so often draws very innocent and pure souls. 
This is the vocation of life in its spring-time, cir- 
cumstances may delay its fulfilment, but it comes 
when a man or woman is freshest and most enthu- 
siastic; such give themselves with all their power 
unimpaired, and the knowledge that their offering 
to God is intact. Then there is the personal love of 
Jesus Christ and the wish to become His spouse. 

**One day after Holy Communion He made me 
understand that He was incomparably greater, 
more powerful and more to be loved than any 
earthly spouse. And another time He said to me, 
‘I have chosen you for My spouse, and we pro- 
mised each other fidelity on the day you took your 
vow of chastity. It was I who urged you to take it; 
before the worldhad any part in your heart, I desired 
a heart quite pure and free from all earthly ties.’”’* 

We read in the life of St Agnes: 

He hath adorned my neck and my right hand with pre- 


_ cious stones, He hath hung my ears with jewels of price and 
surrounded me with shining jewels. 


* Bougaud, ‘‘ Histoire de la Bienheureuse Marguerite Marie.” 


241 16 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


He hath placed a sign on my face, so that I may have no 
other lover but Him. I love Christ and I will espouse the 
Virgin’s Son, whose Father had no earthly spouse, whose 
music is tuneful to me, whom when I love I am chaste, 
whom when I touch I am pure, whom when I possess I am 
a virgin. He hath pledged me with a ring and hath adorned 
me with a precious necklace. 

I have received milk and honey from His mouth, and 
His blood hath adorned my cheeks. He hath showed me in- 
comparable treasures which He hath promised me. 

Already I have fed on His body, and His blood adorns my 
cheeks, whose mother is a virgin, whose Father had no 


earthly spouse. 
I am betrothed to Him whom angels serve, and whose 


beauty sun and moon admire.* 

There is also the attraction to an apostolate, an 
ardent longing to bring souls to Christ; the religious 
feels such happiness in the knowledge and love of 
our Lord that she wants to do even her finite part 
in making Him known and loved by all. This type 
of vocation leads, as a rule, to those Orders which in 
so many different ways work for the conversion of 
infidels and the evangelization of children and the 
poor, and send their members on missions. This 
apostolic zeal also inspires contemplatives like St 
Theresa, whofrom the depths of her Carmel prayed 
so fervently for St Francis Xavier’s missions, and 
thus contributed to their wonderful success. Then 
there is the wish to serve God by doing His will to 
the fullest extent, and realizing as far as possible 
our Saviour’s words: ‘‘ My meat is to do the will of 
My Father.” Other souls are specially attracted to 
a perfect and total union with God. They have 
‘‘chosen the better part.” They wish to pass their 
earthly existence in contemplation at the feet of the 
Guest of Bethany, leaving the world behind. The 


longing for complete, absolute renunciation, the 


* Responses sung by the Church on Sit Agnes’s Day, words drawn from the 
‘‘ Acts” of this martyr. o 
4 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


thirst for immolation, the wish to share, however 
little, in the sufferings of the Passion, the desire to 
expiate the outrages daily offered to God, lead to 
the Orders of Carmelites and Poor Clares. The 
severest, austerest orders attract instead of repel- 
ling, and the postulant finds nothing too hard. This 
attraction seems very wonderful and incomprehen- 
sible; we who live in the world, even if simple in 
our tastes, try to make our lives as congenial and 
comfortable as possible; even when sincerely at- 
tached to our religion, we seek the Lord Jesus 
rather at Bethany than in the desert, we follow Him 
more willingly to Mount Tabor or to the supper 
room than to the Mount of Olives or Calvary. 
That is why we find it so hard to understand those 
souls who are athirst for suffering, who ask and look 
for crosses, because they possess the ineffable gift 
of “loving much.” They offer an effective love to 
Him who willed to suffer so deeply for love of us. 
These are the steadiest, most unchanging vocations, 
because they are founded on motives so high as to 


be untainted by any personal interest.* 


* ** As to religious vocation, without wishing to speak too definitely, this 
is my Opinion. I am inclined to think you havea real vocation, and these are 
my reasons: First, your motives are perfectly pure and disinterested, and 
you have that extraordinary attraction for sacrifice, which seems an inspira- 
tion from our Lord. Then there is your taste for an exceptional life, which, 
far from appearing to be the result of an excited imagination, is accompanied 
by very clear perceptions of the sacrifices you will have to make and the ex- 
terior trials you will have to pass through in your new life. Do not conceal 
these trials from yourself, nor yet exaggerate them; as I have said, they 
come from the outward side of community life, but this ought not to prevent 
your soul from rising above them, and feeling the sweetness and the pro- 
found and solemn happiness which comes from the certainty that you have 
chosen ‘the better part.’ I am, therefore, very much inclined to believe that 
you are really called by God, although you do not yet see to which walk of 
religious life: that is a question to be decided later. But I advise you neither 
to declare it too abruptly, nor delay too long in informing your family; I 
leave that to your tact and filial respect. Iam not surprised that in the human 
part of your soul you should feel those fears you describe. You are about to 
strike a decisive blow which will sever many strong and tender ties. But I 
feel assured that God, in His goodness, will give you the consolations that 
underlie every great sacrifice and every great duty undertaken.” —Lagrange, 
‘*Life of Mgr Dupanloup,” vol. sect ign 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Other direct and high calls, though less sublime 
than the preceding, often give rise to very stead- 
fast vocations; generally these manifest themselves 
later in life. A man or woman realizes very deeply 
the transient quality of all earthly things, and the 
words: ‘‘In the morning man shall grow up like 
grass, in the morning he shall flourish and pass 
away, in the evening he shall fall, grow dry and 
wither.” A vigorous spirit of faith dissipates the 
glamour of the world, and shews its joys in their 
true light. Some people are attracted by the beauty 
of the priceless things of God, others disgusted 
with the insignificance of earthly success. Another 
powerful motive of vocation is the determination 
not to waste any part of life, but to make it as full 
of good deeds as possible. Some souls are attracted 
to solitude and silence, they hope to be able to 
meditate in peace and keep themselves constantly 
near to God. These longings will sometimes give a 
girl, who has always been petted, loved and ad- 
mired, the courage to leave her parents. The part- 
ing is none the less cruel, the history of vocations 
abounds in struggles, tears and hesitations, but 
peace and serenity always come when the final 
step is taken.* 


***But an immediate decision is not at all necessary, on the contrary, it 
appears indispensable that you should stay some time longer in the world 
with your family; always offering God your holy intention, meditating on 
it without impatience or anxiety, and taking full time to gauge the depth of 
your vocation and convince yourself and your family of its reality; this last 
point is a very delicate one, and requires extreme prudence and tact on your 
part. The grief of your dear parents is very natural from their point of view 
and with their ideas, they must find it so hard to understand and consent to 
your sacrifice! Do not check their sorrow, give them every opportunity of 
whatever they think their duty to put to you,in fairness and reason; let them 
feel convinced that you have listened to their objections and thoroughly 
weighed and considered them and that you are not carried away by impulse, 
but conviction. In everything, be kinder and more attentive to them 
than ever. Listen to them calmly, deferentially and respectfully on the sub- 
ject of your vocation, and answer gently but firmly. Let them feel that your 
love is deep, real and more filial than ever, so that if they see you resist it, they 

244 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


The fewest vocations, and those which require 
the test of a careful novitiate, come from the follow- 
ing motives: wish to fly from the world, desire to 
expiate personal sins or those of some one dear, fear 
of not saving our soul in the world, and dread of 
succumbing to strong temptations. In these it is very 
easy to miscalculate the depth of feelings, and the 
reality of the vocation, hence it is important to 
multiply precautions and increase delay. The girl 
who fears for her salvation and sees snares every- 
where may discover after a short time that cir- 


may understand that you are really called by a higher voice than that of 
affection, the only call for whicha child ought to sacrifice paternal and maternal 
claims. During these trials and struggles, turn more thanever to God in prayer, 
there lies your joy, your consolation, your peace and your light. Blessed be 
He who deigns to mix the balm of His consolation with the bitterness of such 
battles! He does not always do so;‘and that is the supreme ordeal. I pray 
Him to spare you, and to bear you in His arms, till all be consummated, and 
you belong to Him for ever. Then He will do as He wills with you. You 
will be strenghtened, you will grow in spiritual beauty and fruitfulness, you 
will follow where He leads you, be the way smooth or difficult. Wait then, 
a little while longer, in peace and quietness, search your mind attentively and 
calmly, and wait for the strength and sweetness which you will get from God. 
I hope to be able to see you soon. Then you can come to a definite decision. 
I pray Almighty God with my whole strength to enlighten me, and put in my 
mouth words which will really interpret His holy willinregardtoyou.... You 
are feeling, my dear child, what always comes after great sacrifices. Calm, 
profound peace, the peace of God, follows the natural shrinking of flesh and 
blood from its immolation. When the sacrifice is consummated, you are alone 
with God, hidden in His Fatherly breast, and tasting infinite happiness. 
May you enjoy that happiness and peace to the full, my child. Regret noth- 
ing that youare leaving behind, for whatis this world and what is human life? 
Think of God and Heaven, all is there; the whole reason of your sacrifice 
and your hopes lies in that great contrast. As to the sacred ties you have to 
break, fear nothing! God will repay a hundredfold the generous co-operation 
of your family in that vocation which so plainly comes from Him. Your dear 
mother writes to me that she is at peace, and can give thanks. As to your novi- 
tiate and the whole of your religious life, my child, I can only repeat to you 
St Jerome’s words to the souls he led up to the heights by paths resembling 
yours: ‘Be generous, let your sacrifice be complete, withdraw nothing of what 
you have once offered.’ Then you may expect a holy and fruitful life, even, 
I would add, a happy one, in spite of all you are giving up; for the blessing 
of the Holy Spirit, which surpasses all other sweetness, is promised to per- 
fect generosity. Trials will come as you must know, dryness and the lack 
of consolation. But if, in spite of these ordeals and God’s apparent neglect 
of you, your generosity does not fail, what merit, and what abundance of 
spiritual joys will be yours! Courage then, dear child, you are nearing the 
haven. Make fast your poor little vessel, and Jesus will be with you. I bless 
you paternally in our Lord.”—Lagrange, ‘‘ Vie de Mgr Dupanloup,” vol. I, iii. 


245 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


cumstances have altered, her wish to re-enter reli- 
gion has passed, and ordinary life quite fulfils her 
real aspirations. Such vocations are more often 
founded on the fear than on the love of God. This 
is only the ‘‘beginning of wisdom,” but it may lead 
to its fullness if we really know how to search our 
own hearts. Souls who have once heard the ‘‘still, 
small voice” are always anxious to know them- 
selves. That voice, so sweet and gentle, yet so firm, 
says to one, ‘‘ Martha, Martha, thou art troubled 
about many things,” to another, ‘‘ Follow Me,” and 
‘‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny him- 
self.”” People say these are counsels, not precepts, 
and counsels are not of obligation. But counsels are 
obligations to some natures; it is enough for per- 
fection to be held upto them. ‘‘Oh! if thou wouldst,” 
saidthe voiceto young Gratry, and thisisever intheir 
ears.* For them, there can be no possible peace but 
in entire obedience to the counsels, abnegation, 
and the complete giving up of self, consummated in 
those three vows of religion so lightly condemned 
as ‘‘unreasonable” and ‘‘against nature.” There 
can be nothing unreasonable or unnatural in immo- 
lating self, and wishing to be encouraged, instead 
of deterred by our companions and surroundings. 
It is not against nature to long to lay down the bur- 


**©A kind of life-giving air surrounded me and penetrated my breast; an 
interior voice, extraordinarily solemn yet strangely sweet, repeated slowly 
and gravely with an accent of fathomless depth, ‘Ah, if thou wouldst !’ ‘I 
cannot,’ I answered gently and respectfully, ‘you see it is impossible.’ 
‘But, if thou wouldst,’ repeated the gentle voice, ever more caressing and 
life-giving. And I went on giving the same answer, calling Heaven and earth 
to witness that it was impossible. ‘There is no obligation,’ repeated the 
angel, or the Queen of Heaven, who seemed to be addressing me, ‘but still, 
if thou wouldst!’... Always the same words, with ever-growing meaning. 
I saw the immense consequences of free will in this sacrifice which was not 
imposed upon me, but merely suggested to me, with such blessed possibilities. 
And so the marvellous conversation proceeded, with the same question and 
answer.”—Gratry, ‘‘Souvenirs de ma Jeunesse.” 


246 


RELIGIOUS VOCATION 


den of responsibility and decisions, and obey a 
Superior who takes it all on her own shoulders. 
Neither is it against nature to give ourself un- 
reservedly, with heart and soul, to One whom 
we absolutely trust, to Jesus Christ, instead of 
to man. 


247 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


@, II. Vocations among the Blind 


HE question now to be considered is, the 

real cause of vocations in the blind. People 

in the world, according to their several 
views, either wonder that any blind women become 
nuns, or that all do not enter convents. It is natural 
that those who consider the religious life as folly 
or a long martyrdom, and see in it only its pri- 
vations and humiliations, should not understand 
how a blind person can add this torture to the afflic- 
tion of blindness. On the other hand, those who 
look upon life in the cloister as a heaven upon earth, 
unappreciated only by those absorbed in the ‘‘fleet- 
ing seductions of the world,” are surprised that, as 
a convent for blind nuns does exist, all the blind 
women living should not instantly rush into it. I 
have said before, and I repeat it advisedly, both 
these classes of people look upon blind girls as 
annihilated and paralysed by their misfortune; 
they admit that the affections may survive in them, 
but to them a blind person can only be half alive. 
I have endeavoured to shew how exaggerated such 
views are, and I hope that at this stage my readers 
have come to agree with me. Celibacy being, as we 
have seen, the lot of most blind girls, the education 
given them is of a kind to prepare them for it. But 
it would be a mistake to think that all who have 
passed through Blind Schools are ready to enter 
religion. First of all, single life is there enforced, 
and not their chosen lot, and in the second place 
the natural tendency of eh spinster’s character is 


VOCATIONS AMONG THE BLIND 


by no means identical with that of a nun. Old maids 
are generally very independent, and prefer to be 
as little as possible under subjection to anyone. On 
the contrary, the married woman in some ways is 
far more like a nun; it is the more loving natures 
that long for support and protection, who shrink 
from responsibility and dread solitude; passionate, 
ardent souls, who long to surrender themselves 
once and for all to one object, without waiting for 
the thousand daily opportunities of self-sacrifice. 

‘It is no life for a young girl,” writes a work- 
ing woman, ‘‘to be always alone. There comes a 
time when she gets terribly weary of her life. Mar- 
riage has no attractions for me. My wish is to enter 
religion: to devote myself entirely to God and do 
all the good I can around me.’’* 

It is true that this was not written by a blind 
woman, but the idea is very human, and particu- 
larly French; blindness would not alter it. ‘‘Does 
there exist a people on whom collective life has had 
more influence than on the French, who always feel 
the need of being in harmony with others? Solitude 
is irksome to us; if union is our strength, it is also 
our happiness. We cannot consent to think alone, 
live alone, or enjoy ourselves alone; we cannot 
separate our pleasures from those of others.”} 

This frame of mind is more feminine than mas- 
culine, and is certainly the cause of the immense 
success of female communities in France. Blind 
girls are not exempt from it, they long intensely to 
share the aims and sympathies of their youth with 
congenial souls, and to feel that others have like 
tastes and aspirations. When we are drawn to the 


* Comte d’Haussonville, ‘‘Salaires et Mistres de Femmes.” 
+ Fouillée, ‘‘ Psychologie du Peuple Francais.” 


249 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Good and the Beautiful, and are profoundly moved 
by one of their manifestations, our first instinct is to 
communicate our enthusiasm to others; admiration 
is essentially altruistic. It is a very pure form of 
enjoyment to pray in common or to read a noble 
book with a friend. Blind people feel this keenly, 
and cannot hope, as others, for this kind of in- 
timacy to be brought about by marriage. 

When girls who have been educated by refined, 
cultured teachers, in select schools among sympa- 
thetic companions, returntotheir own homes, if they 
find themselves in commonplace surroundings and 
hear of nothing but material interests, they feel op- 
pressed, out of their element, and aspire to a differ- 
ent kind of existence. Furthermore, it is a great 
thing for the blind to live together and devote them- 
selves to the education and bringing up of blind 
children; they feel themselves of use, and their lives 
become practical with definite aims and immediate 
results. They have also the satisfaction of feeling 
themselves part of a group or a whole, and that 
they are entering on a special mission. This satisfac- 
tion is the keener that often a blind woman in her 
own home has met with humiliations and been con- 
sidered a failure. Their religious profession at once 
puts them on a level with their companions. Finally, 
there is the longing for material and moral support, 
and a constant need of supervision which the blind 
woman feels far more than her happier sisters. Still, 
we must not exaggerate; however attractive psycho- 
logical research may be, and those explanations 
which flatter the rationalistic tendencies of the 
present day, we must not overlook in the mo- 
tives for religious vocation the immense attrac- 


tion to blind as to other women so well expressed 
250 


VOCATIONS AMONG THE BLIND 


in this fragment from the life of Blessed Margaret 
Mary: 

‘*My greatest joy was the thought of frequent 
Communion, for it was rarely allowed me. I should 
have thought myself the happiest of mortals, if I 
could have communicated often and spent the night 
before the Blessed Sacrament. On the eves of my 
Communions I felt myself rapt in such profound 
silence that it was an effort to speak, because of the 
solemnity of what I was about to do; and afterwards 
my consolation was so great that I felt I did not 
need to eat, drink, see nor speak. 

‘‘If I were to go into the community it would 
be for love of you; I wish to go where I have no 
friends or acquaintances, so as to become a nun 
without any other motive than the love of God.... 
I wish to go to the ‘Saintes Maries,’ in a distant 
convent, where I shall know no one. I wish to be 
a nun for the sake of God alone. I desire to forsake 
the world entirely and hide myself in some corner 
where I can forget and be forgotten for ever.” * 

In considering vocations, we must allow a very 
great deal for the direct action of God. The im- 
perative, unmistakable call of God to the soul, 
which it listens to and answers in silence, can be 
heard as well by the blind as by others. Only before 
the days of Anne Bergunion, the souls of the blind 
could not correspond to it. They felt an unknown 
want which was the cause of great suffering to them 
though unexpressed. Anne Bergunion had felt it 
herself; perhaps others confided in her, and thus 
inspired her work. We cannot deny that these calls 
exist. We see blind organists leaving a convent 
where they had found an agreeable refined home, 


* “Life of Blessed Margaret Mary,” Bougaud. 
251 


Fs 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


to consecrate themselves completely to God, and 
become the mystic Spouses of Jesus Christ. Others 
with nothing attractive in their surroundings, whose 
lives are hard and uncongenial, will not hear of 
entering religion. No, religious vocation, any more 
than piety and fervour, does not necessarily follow 
from blindness; it is rooted in the depths of the 
soul. In the same way that it ought to be forbidden 
to persons lacking the artistic instinct to talk about 
art (though they may be otherwise intelligent and in- 
teresting), so those who have never tried to lead the 
interior life, for whom piety and fervour are but 
abstractions, ought never to discuss the workings 
of God in the soul, because they cannot in the least 
understand them. When a soul has really experi- 
enced the holy joy of fervour, the rapture of joining 
her nothingness to God, she will feel (whether 
blind or not matters nothing) that no earthly hap- 
piness can approach this mystic union; it is not 
wonderful, therefore, that she longs to remain 
henceforth and for ever in that delicious atmo- 
sphere which she finds in the religious life. 


252 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


@, Ill. The Religious Life 


O understand ‘‘the religious life” we must 

make a real effort to forget ourselves and 

our usual way of looking at things. The 
man who has never seriously reflected on life for 
half an hour, or wondered what was the object of 
his own existence, who practically, if not theoreti- 
cally, has been interested solely in this world, and 
who goes on his way with no wish to draw near to 
God, or to train himself, can have no conception 
of the religious life. To be interested in it we must 
be preoccupied with the interior life, the things of 
the soul and contact with God. We must under- 
stand the great happiness (perhaps the greatest) of 
constantly working at our spiritual formation. If 
we accept ourselves without trying to improve, 
with our mass of qualities and defects, good or bad 
tendencies inherited from our parents or assimilated 
by the force of circumstances, or if we go to the 
other extreme of thinking God too far off to bring 
His infinite Being into contact with our finite souls, 
if we have never known those blessed and ideal 
hours of silent converse with God of which Pére 
Gratry writes, then we are ignorant of the very 
alphabet of the spiritual life. We can neither under- 
stand nor speak of it; and we fall into the mistake 
of thinking of a very real objective truth as a chi- 
merical illusion. The life of the soul is a different 
thing from the intellectual life, in the usual sense of 
the expression. A humble nun, busy from morning 


till night with material work, may be leading a far 
253 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


more intensely spiritual life than a man of letters, 
or a student who is constantly immersed in pro- 
blems, but leaves his soul quite undeveloped. Cul- 
ture may under certain circumstances prepare the 
soul and make the way clear for spiritual interests, 
but it is in no way essential to them. For the soul 
is not the intellect; it has other faculties and powers, 
not only exterior and interior intuitions, but also 
a ‘‘sense of the divine.”* 

When, in agreement with Thomassin, Gratry 
and other philosophers, we admit the existence of 
this ‘‘sense of the Divine,” when, without ever 
having heard the names of these thinkers, or know- 
ing that the soul has certain powers, we can feel 
this sense in ourselves, it is not difficult to realize 
it in others, or to understand the religious life. We 
discover how it is that in life the contact with 
persons and things does not satisfy us or fill our 
whole being; we feel the supreme desire to draw 
near to God, and we strive with our whole will to 
become less ethically imperfect. We feel so weak, 
so lonely in the struggle, so hindered and impeded 
by the weeds of habit and the parasites of daily 
occupations that we realize what must be the com- 
fort and relief, the encouragement and support of 


*“*Tmpressions from physical nature are called feelings; for others is re- 
served the name of sentiments, but in the latter we must not confound the 
instincts of our own soul with those which may come from God. The triple 
capacity of realizing three things, our body, our soul and God, has three 
names according to its object: exterior sense, intuitive sense, and sense of 
the Divine. Some philosophers deny the existence of what we call the sense 
of the Divine. This would seem illogical, for these very thinkers who will 
not hear of more than two senses (the exterior, with nature for its object, 
and the intuitive, whose object is the soul), are forced to admit that there is 
something in the soul which apprehends, or at any rate reaches, the idea of 
God. Some, it is true, believe that the soul cannot realize God, and that 
He can only be apprehended by Pure Reason. This is a profound error. 
These philosophers also think that there are no signs of the presence of God 
but the necessary ideas, cause, unity and infinity. To believe this is to 
mutilate the soul, to rob its sanctuary, and to drag up its roots.”—Gratry, 
‘*De la Connaissance de Il’Ame,” vol. I. 


254 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


that scheme of existence known as “ religious” or 
‘‘community life.” 

‘*If all could know the happiness of the religious 
state,” says St Lawrence Justinian, ‘‘men would 
rush madly into it; but as this would arrest the 
reproduction of humanity, Providence withholds 
this knowledge from the greater number, and it 
remains to them a riddle to which only a few 
have the answer.” What is this happiness? Is 
it purely mysticalP Does ‘‘She hath chosen the 
better part,” mean only for eternity? But then 
what would become of our Lord’s promise to St 
Peter: ‘‘Amen, I say to you, there is no man that 
hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, 
or children, for the Kingdom of God’s sake, who 
shall not receive much more in this present time, 
and in the world to come, life everlasting.” * 

All those who have read Lacordaire’s ‘‘St Domi- 
nic” will remember his poetic description of the 
medieval monastery, with its interior cloister, the 
symbolical fountain or well in the middle of the 
vaults, its wide galleries and tiny cells, its solemn 
church with pictures and inscriptions telling the 
history of the Order, and mementoes of the re- 
ligious family and its long files of monks, old and 
young, pacing in peaceful silence over the stones 
which cover the skeletons of their predecessors. 
Monasteries were usually situated in beautiful 
scenery; many bore such names as ‘‘Beau-Lieu,” 
**Clair-Lieu,” ‘*Cher-Lieu,” etc. Alcuin, about to 
leave his monastery for Charlemagne’s court, 
writes: ‘‘O my cell! sweet and beloved resting place, 
farewell for ever! I shall see no more the woods 
which surround thee, with their interlacing branches 


* Luke xviii, 


255 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


and flowery verdure, no more shall I behold thy 
meadows full of sweet-smelling and health-giving 
herbs, thy waters full of fish, thy orchards, and 
thy gardens where roses and lilies mingle! I shall 
no longer hear the birds who, like us, sing Matins 
and praise their Creator in their own way; or 
those teachings of sweet and sacred wisdom, which, 
with praises of the Most High, echo from lips and 
hearts at peace. Dear cell! I shall regret and weep 
for you for ever; but thus all things change and 
have an end, night succeeds day, summer follows 
winter, storm comes after calm, and ardent youth 
ends in worn-out old age.” * 

Thus did monks love their monasteries a thou- 
sand years ago, and they love them none the less to- 
day. Certainly the convents where nuns spend their 
lives nowadays have little in common with medie- 
val monasteries. Many are badly built houses,some 
mere hovels in a side alley. But it is there that 
young girls see, in the midst of foundlings, sick peo- 
ple or old paupers, the Sister of Charity who looks 
as if she had found a haven of rest. If not a haven 
of peace, this ugly, cold, gloomy, confined and in- 
convenient building is whereshe had her revelation, 
and perhaps will spend her novitiate. The nine- 
teenth-century nun grows attached to her convent, 
loves it,and enshrines it in her memory, as the monk 
Alcuin thought of his fair solitude. And truly, when 
we reflect how nuns love even the walls of the 
house where they made their novitiate inthe spring- 
time of their vocation, it makes us really believe 
that the entry into religion is a ‘‘new birth.” They 
are burning with zeal, and full of those vivid im- 
pressions which belong to childhood or to the time 


* Montalembert, ‘‘Les Moines d’Occident,” Introduction. 


256 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


of young love. Children possess the priceless faculty 
of seeing things, not as they are but as they would 
wish them to be. A child can make itself believe 
that a wretched little acorn is a golden cup or a fairy 
boat. 

**So far as I myself have observed, the dis- 
tinctive character of a child is to live always in the 
tangible present, having little pleasure in memory 
and being utterly impatient and tormented by anti- 
cipation; weak alike in reflection and forethought, 
but having an intense possession of the actual pre- 
sent, down to the shortest moments and least ob- 
jects of it; possessing it indeed so intensely that the 
sweet childish days are as long as twenty days will 
be; and setting all the faculties of heart and imagi- 
nation on little things, so as to be able to make 
anything out of them he chooses. Confined to a 
little garden, he does not imagine himself some- 
where else, but makes a great garden out of that; 
possessed of an acorn-cup, he will not despise it 
and throw it away, and covet a golden one in its 
stead: it is the adult who does so. The child keeps 
his acorn-cup as a treasure, and makes a golden 
one out of it in his mind; so that the wondering, 
grown-up person standing beside him is always 
tempted to ask concerning his treasures, not, ‘ What 
would you have more than these?’ but, ‘What pos- 
sibly can you see in these?’ for, to the bystander, 
there is a ludicrous and incomprehensible incon- 
sistency between the child’s words and the reality. 
The little thing tells him gravely, holding up the 
acorn-cup, that ‘this is a queen’s crown,’ or ‘a 
fairy’s boat,’ and, with beautiful effrontery, expects 
you to believe the same. But observe, the acorn- 


cup must be there, and in his own hand. ‘Give it 
257 17 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


me; then I will make more of it for myself.’ That 
is the child’s one word always. It is also the one 
word of the Greek, ‘Give it me.’ Give me any- 
thing definite here in my sight, then I will make 
more of it.” * 

At such times the mind beholds its surroundings 
(as it never does again in life, except perhaps under 
the magic of love) as the heart would have them. 
We are happy, and later in life we have the im- 
pression or the illusion of past happiness; the places 
lived in long ago, especially if we have never seen 
them since, remain idealized in our memory, and 
full of marvellous visions. Love is what really makes 
nuns, and love it is that keeps them in the convent— 
a very real, objective love of the person of Jesus 
Christ, which fills heart and mind. When philoso- 
phers speak of the homage men owe to God because 
of His infinite perfections, they understand this to 
imply a certain amount of love, since we always 
feel a little love for what we greatly admire; but is 
not such a feeling more in the intellect than in the 
affection? Ideas cannot fill a life. . . . Well, our 
Lord Jesus Christ, loved as a real living person, 
close at hand, to whom a nun has given herself 
totally and for ever, can satisfy her soul completely. 
Doubtless she may,and does, have moments of gloom 
and sadness; she has to face difficulties and all the 
little meannesses and inevitable consequences of 
human imperfections; but they are but moments, 
accidents which are absorbed in the great love she 
bears the Master whom all serve in common. In 
any large household there must be differences and 
divergences of thoughts, tastes and opinions; but 
the general harmony is not affected by them because. 


* Ruskin, ‘‘ Aratra Pentelici,” ‘‘ Imagination,” 77, 78. 
258 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


of the common ground of affection where all meet, 
and which is the unity of the whole family. In the 
convent, active and fervent piety is the moving 
spirit, the sole preoccupation, and the bond of union 
between all hearts and minds. It is enough to read 
St Theresa to understand how prayer can rouse the 
soul, and if anyone objects that this implies more 
mystic imagination than solid reality, | would ask 
him, with Pére Gratry, ‘‘ Yes or no, do you believe 
that God is powerless to communicate with His crea- 
tures?” Is the Word unable to make Himself heard, 
if men can speak to each other P In the convent they 
believe in prayer and practise it; they cultivate the 
‘interior life” and are not afraid to mention it. 
They are encouraged in this in a perfectly practical 
and reasonable way, in wisdom and sound common 
sense. St Jane Chantal wrote to her daughters: 

**1. Never voluntarily commit any fault, however 
small; I mean of your own absolute free will and 
choice, and never omit any good deed which you 
know God expects of you. Then set your minds at 
rest. 

‘**2. Never be troubled about your past, present 
or future shortcomings; I wish you to feel no care 
or anxiety on this subject. 

**3. Humble yourselves profoundly before God 
for your smallest sins; remember that evil is the 
produce of your own natures, but the smallest 
good in you is an effect of the help and grace of 
our Lord. Resolve, with the help of His grace, to 
acquire some good habit to repair the known short- 
comings. 

_ “4, This is corresponding faithfully to the pre- 
sence of God, and performing all your actions with 


the sole aim of pleasing His Divine Majesty. Fi- 
259 a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


nally, my daughter, humble yourself, humble your- 
self, humble yourself; do all the good possible, 
avoid all the harm you can, so that you may never 
be surprised into committing a fault from shere 
carelessness. Humiliate yourself without losing 
your peace of mind. Pride causes us to weep over 
our imperfections, but truly humble contrition 
draws profit even from our falls.” * 

St Vincent de Paul, in his familiar instructions, 
says: ‘‘Love God, brothers, love God; but let it be 
with the labour of our hands and in the sweat of 
our brow. Many acts of the love of God, such as 
complacency, benevolence, and other affections 
and interior practices of a loving heart, though 
very good and desirable, are often very useless 
when we come to put effectual love into practice. 
Our Lord tells us that we glorify His Father by 
bringing forth much fruit. We must be very care- 
ful; many have a devotional exterior, and a heart 
full of high sentiment, but when it comes to action, 
they stop short. They exult in their excited imagi- 
nation, and speak like angels of the sweet converse 
they have had with God, but beyond this, when it 
is a question of working for Him, mortifying them- 
selves, instructing the poor, seeking the lost sheep, 
willingly foregoing their comforts, accepting illness 
or misfortune, alas, they leave their post, and their 
courage fails them.’ 

Convent life is busy and active; sometimes the 
work is hard and difficult, but difficulties are never 
encountered singly, and life in common has an im- 
mense advantage. ‘‘ It is better to be two than one, 
for each profits by the other’s company. If one fall, 


* “ Conseils de Mére Chantal 4 la Mére Francoise Madeleine de Chaugy.” 
+ Abelly, ‘‘ Vie de Saint-Vincent de Paul,” vol. I. 


260 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


the other raises him up; if one is cold, the other 
warms him; if one is too weak to resist, the other 
helps him to overcome; and if a rope is formed of 
three strands, it is not easily broken.” 

These words of an ancient writer are true to-day; 
isolation in activity is a dreadful ordeal which 
quickly exhausts strength, whereas the most tiring 
and unattractive work is transformed when shared 
by some one with whom we are in harmony of ideas 
and feelings. The nuns tell each other events in the 
lives of the saints, and,collecting sisters repeat pious 
legends, bringing faith and trust in God into their 
daily lives. ‘‘It so happened that two itinerant 
friars were still fasting at three in the afternoon, 
and they asked each other how they could appease 
their hunger in the rugged, arid country they were 
walking over. As they were speaking, a man in the 
dress of a traveller came up to them and said, 
‘What troubles ye, O men of little faith? Seek first 
the kingdom of God, and the rest will be given to 
you in abundance. You had faith enough to give 
yourselves to God, and now you are afraid that He 
will leave you without food! Cross this field, and 
when you come to the valley below you will have 
reached a village; enter the church, and the parish 
priest will invite you to his house. Then will appear 
a knight who will try to take you home with him 
by force; then the patron of the living will thrust 
himself between them and take the priest, the 
knight and both of you off and entertain you 
magnificently. Trust in the Lord and encourage 
your brothers to have faith in Him.’ So saying 
he disappeared, and all fell out as he had fore- 
told. The brothers, when they returned to Paris, 
told what had happened to them to Brother 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Henry and the few poor brothers then living 
there.” * 

Thus the imagination is constantly fed with the 
sayings and doings of ancient, and often very edify- 
ing personages, whose example leads, through the 
highest paths, to the ideal. This union of hearts, 
wills and souls is delightfully fruitful in intellectual 
work; individual minds gain largely in strength and 
insight. That is why Pére Gratry was so anxious to 
revive the Oratory in France.f 

It is a very subtle and keen pleasure to be in con- 
tact with those souls whom we influence or develop; 
who, at the first conception of an ideal or special 
object in life, has not dreamed of a fellow-worker 
with similar aims, who should have realized the 
ideal or be pursuing it, but be still our guideP What 
joy, what a glow of comfort we feel when we think 
we have found one! ... It is this joy (and a greater, 
since the ‘‘ Master” was Christ) that shines through 
St. John’s description of the meeting of the first 
disciples. f 


* Gerard de Frachet, ‘* Vie des Freres,” quoted by Lacordaire in his ‘‘ Life 
of St Dominic.” 

+‘ What! souls and minds can meet in God? No! no! say ignorance and 
habit with heavy materialistic commonsense. But there, in that nest where 
we were all together, so united in affection, thought and hopes, we often 
felt as if struck by flashes from each other’s souls, and were pursued by a 
ferment of feelings and thoughts which we conveyed to each other. I hardly 
like to describe some experiences, because though true they sound so un- 
likely. ‘But who ever since yesterday, all through the night and even this 
morning, has been following up an idea that was not even mentioned yester- 
terday? I fancy it was you!’ ‘Yes, it was I,’ immediately answered Henri 
Perreyve. We need not go farther into these psychological analyses: some 
things are manifest to all. It is perfectly evident that we are, and feel our- 
selves to be, stronger when in a congenial assemblage of minds. Supported 
and mutually strengthened, full of confidence and hope, we meditated the 
realization at some future day ofa kind of mental workshop where all should 
labour together for the same ends.”—Gratry, ‘‘ Henri Perreyve.’ 

t ‘The next day again, John stood, and two of his disciples, and beholding 
Toews walking, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God. 

‘* And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. 

‘And Jesus turning, and seeing them following Him, saith unto them, 
What seek you? Who said to Him, Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, 
Master), where dwellest Thou? a 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


When once we have found the ‘‘ Master,” night 
may come, and with it every evening of our lives, 
with the different feelings of melancholy born of 
each season and epoch of our existence; we can 
watch them without alarm, following each other and 
even hurrying by. Yes, it is a great happiness to 
have found the ‘‘Master” in youth; the Person 
who incarnates and defines the ideal which we had 
striven to erect in our solitude. Often we had but 
vague and even faulty conceptions; His sudden en- 
try into our lives, in all His perfection, has all the 
more power over us. Many young girls find that 
their Superior in the Convent is an exceptional 
personality, and they attach themselves to her all 
the more deeply because the rule enjoins on them 
to consider their Superior as God’s delegate, and 
urges them to trust her fully and open their hearts 
completely to her. Then, indeed, peace and light 
fill the soul. And such encounters and intuition of 
soul do not depend on length of friendship or many 
words. ‘‘ What matters speech P Often mere bodily 
presence says more than long discourses, an affec- 
tionate, intelligent, magnetic, vital personality 
needs no words to make its power felt, and capti- 
vate us even in silence!” * 

If happiness be ‘‘ peace and order,” as St Augus- 
tine says, it ought to be found in the religious life, 
where all is foreseen, arranged and settled. In the 
perfect regularity of such an existence, where we 
and our neighbours are under one authority, is there 
not a shadow of the security and dependence of our 
childhood, that feeling which, alas! is among the 


‘*He saith to them: Come and see. They came, and saw where He abode, 
and they staid with Him that day: now it was about the tenth hour. 
‘* And Andrew the brother of Simon Peter was one of the two who had 
heard from John and followed Him.” 
*Pere Didon, ‘‘ Jésus-Christ,” vol. I. 
263 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


first to leave us? We feel that each thing and per- 
son is ‘‘in the right place.” In the world we have 
to fight our way among cares and details which ab- 
sorb time and strength, and paralyse us for the 
great actions of life, and we know that our friends 
and neighbours are eaten up by the same disease; 
in the convent one person looks after the material 
interests of all the others, so that each one’s facul- 
ties remain unimpeded; each has a task, which she 
applies herself to with all her heart and mind, to 
bring to perfection. The entire scheme of existence 
is morally and physically beneficent; the complete 
repose and silence so essential to mental equili- 
brium are only found in convents; in the world we 
neither know how to rest nor keep silence with any 
semblance of method. As silence gives force to 
words, so repose is the strength of action; it is as 
necessary to know when to rest as when to work; 
in the convent repose is a science.* 

As the Rule insists on regular, periodical intervals 
of rest, active natures do not run the risk of ex- 
hausting themselves in feverish work, interrupted 
by pauses of extreme fatigue spent more in torpid 
languor than in useful rest; and dreamers and unde- 
cided characters are not able to waste their lives 
in long periods of semi-idleness. Sleep is a blessed 
and mysterious thing, we throw ourselves into it 


* ** Repose is a necessity; and nowadays, we need rest far more than work, 

‘* Repose is the sister of silence. We lack both. 

‘‘ We are often more sterile for need of rest, than for want of work. 

Repose i is such an important thing that the Holy Scriptures go so far as to 
say: ‘The wise man acquires wisdom in his time of rest.’ The greatest re- 
proach a prophet addresses to the Jewish people is: ‘Ye have said, we will 
not rest’—Et dixisti: Non quiescam. 

‘‘ What, then, is restP Rest is the pause of life, while she drinks at her 
source. 

‘*Sleep is repose of the body, God alone knows what passes during sleep. 

‘* Prayer is rest of mind and soul. Prayer is the soul’s life, when the heart 
and intellect pauses to drink and bathe in their source, which is God.”— 
Gratry, ‘‘ Les Sources.” 

264 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


without respect or preparation, one day abusing it, 
and the next depriving ourselves; we can only get, 
in soul and body, the real good of sleep, when we 
receive it as the gift of God, prepared for in silence, 
and followed by it. Silence has been much praised. 
This is well, but I doubt if it really be practised 
anywhere but in convents. Silence is brutally im- 
posed on children when it would often be better to 
allow them to speak and think aloud; but we do 
not prescribe it for ourselves. In many communi- 
ties the admirable institution of the ‘‘Great Si- 
lence” exists; it commences at nine in the evening, 
and ends at seven next morning, and is not broken 
save for absolute necessity. Sleep, prayer and work 
have quite different effects when prepared for in 
silence. 

Of course the silence of the lips does not neces- 
sarily imply that of the heart and mind; it is possi- 
ble to say nothing, yet, at the same time, not to be 
in that quiet interior frame of mind which can hear 
the instructions of the Word ‘‘without sound of 
speech”; but even lip-silence leads to the spiritual 
subtleness and lucidity necessary at such times. 
Ordinary life lacks silence as much as prayer; we 
are constantly in a state of material and mental un- 
rest, we do not think calmly, we do not ‘‘rise,” our 
soul is as if asleep, its highest powers undeveloped.* 


* **Ts it not manifest that in some souls one dominant faculty dwarfs every 
other? The spontaneous instinctive life of feelings, passions and desires al- 
most entirely overwhelms intellect and will; very few men develop reason 
more than feeling, and liberty more than either. They cannot understand 
Christ’s words: ‘If ye shall do My words, ye shall know the truth, and the 
truth shall set you free. . . .’ But it is a law that we must vaguely follow some 
model. The science of the soul shews an enormous disproportion between 
our knowledge and outward impressions, an enormous and deplorable dis- 
proportion between our love and free action, as regards our inspirations, or 
even our understanding; and this disproportion is the proof of childishness 
as well as decadence in the soul, disobedience to law, indigence and defor- 
mity, only to be repaired by the work of a lifetime.” —Gratry, ‘‘ De la Con- 
naissance de l’Ame,” vol. I. 

265 © 


i 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


We think of our souls as fully developed, we do 
not try to understand their promptings, and in truth, 
do many people believe that the soul is a ‘‘ growing 
power,” and try to live a spiritual life in God? 
There is, in the interior life, an inexhaustible flow 
of light and strength at which the humblest may 
quench his thirst.* 

In convents all the arrangements of material 
and spiritual existence powerfully assist the soul’s 
development; all tend to this end, and help us to- 
wards it instead of impeding us. I wonder at the 
naiveté of some clever men, whose psychological 
perceptions must be very limited. They are sur- 
prised when a young girl enters a convent, and say, 
‘*She had all she could wish for in the world.” Yes, 
all except food for that ‘‘sense of the divine” in the 
soul, which such men do not remember or believe 
in, but which nevertheless exists, and is so real, 
that to satisfy and develop it she gladly gives up 
what they call ‘‘everything in life.” How well 
Pére Gratry (not to mention others) understands 
human nature! He appeals to every faculty and 
power, he tries to lead the whole man, body, mind 
and soul to God, and would have us develop our 
whole personality to its utmost. Souls respond to 
such appeals, they are suddenly transported into an 
atmosphere where they feel an immense freedom. 
What happiness it is to realize that we can help on 
our own interior development, and that nothing 
can really arrest or limit us in this direction! The 
wise men of this world only busy themselves with 
the exterior; religious psychology goes further and 
plumbs the soul to its very depths. The moral dis- 


* Maine de Biran says: ‘‘'One moment of love and peace in God’s presence 
shews and teaches us more truths than all the reasoning in the world.” 


266 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


comfort felt by some, and but little understood, is 
due to their not having the courage to develop 
their souls to the full, or not knowing how to do so. 
The soul unconsciously aspires, and sometimes can- 
not reach its goal except by the road of sacrifice. 
Few people, I repeat, seem to realize that we do 
not receive our souls fully developed and equipped; 
the soul is a ‘‘ growing power,” always susceptible of 
expansion as long as its corporeal envelope grows.* 

This is as divine a law as the growth of the body, 
that law which we can never disobey without the 
penalty of discomfort, or even sometimes bitter 
suffering, if Providence has ordained any consider- 
able changes in us. Now, if the soul be a growing 
power, if it possess a sense of the Divine, how can 
it fail to suffer when hindered in development and 
prevented from satisfying its divine instincts? The 
nun is spared this kind of pain; her Rule and the 
pervading atmosphere keep her constantly em- 
ployed in cultivating the spiritual side of her nature. 
When we read Rodriguez, a master of the spiritual 
life most frequently studied in communities, we are 
struck by his constant advice to develop the human 
soul. The firstpoint is to try and know ourselves 
thoroughly. It is true that philosophy has been ad- 


vising us to do this ever since Socrates, but who 


* “The object of life is to cultivate clear intelligence and free will from first 
premisses and to develop them from their known principles. The life in us 
grows through our own efforts. . . . Most souls remain fallow; neither a clear 
intelligence nor an effectual love can proceed from a mass of vague instincts 
and dim perceptions. These are those unprofitable souls whom the Master of 
men accuses in His Gospel of wasting the talents which God has given 
them. They are ‘buried,’ says the Gospel. Their reason is not a definite 
power, and they have no freedom of action. All their thoughts are inar- 
ticulate and confused; the only love they know is that of instinct and blind 
passion. Effectual clear-sighted love, springing from heart and mind, never 
reigns in them; their perpetual twilight never gives way to the dawn of 
day... . Again, there are souls whose intelligence and will are definitely de- 
veloped to a certain extent; but these powers only awake to separate and 
enter into conflict with each other and with their common source.” —Gratry, 
“De la Connaissance de Ame.” __ 

267 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


acts on the advice so thoroughly as nuns, who ex- 
amine their thoughts, words, deeds and omissions 
at least twice a dayP | 

I claim that in the convent a human being can 
satisfy every want and aspiration. Indeed, the re- | 
ligious or community life, although not of divine 
primitive institution like the family and home life, 
yet is so directly founded on the ‘‘counsels,” if not 
on the ‘‘precepts” of the Gospel, that it must also 
be considered as the intention of Providence. The 
Church, which represents God on earth, has so 
often and openly approved of it, that in Christian 
society it is almost as fundamental as the family in 
natural conditions. Now, all that is of divine institu- 
tion is in perfect equilibrium and admirable har- 
mony. Complete family life, not restricted or 
truncated by contemporary egoism, answers to all 
the needs of the heart at every stage of existence; 
everything about it isin harmony and has its proper 
season. Home life is a link with the past and a claim 
on the future; when old age appears with its sor- 
rows, grandchildren have already come, as a pledge 
of continuity, to enliven us with their fresh gaiety. 
We feel consoled to think that something belonging 
to us will go on into the future, we are surrounded 
by grandchildren, when our own children, absorbed 
by the stress of life, are absent from our fireside. 
But human selfishness interrupts the harmony Pro- 
vidence intended, and too often old people end their 
days by a hearth which is symbolically, if not 
materially, cold. 

In the religious life pre-established harmony 
cannot be interrupted by the selfishness of individu- 
als. The community does not pass, but remains 


the same; it is renewed, but insensibly, and without 
268 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


the painful impression of decay in what we have 
loved and longed to keep intact—decay of what we 
knew when we were young and happy. The nun 
feels a profound peace, a moral and material sense 
of security in the face of possible illness, approach- 
ing old age and death. As I have said before, it isa 
mistake to imagine the religious life as philosophi- 
cally abnormal, or in discord with the wants of our 
heart and mind, to think of it as a constant torture 
to human nature, a perpetual contradiction of every 
taste, wish and inclination, or to believe that God 
is obliged to interfere supernaturally at every in- 
stant, and give his privileged servants strength to 
bear the struggle of such an unnatural existence. 
Doubtless God does intervene, and sustains them 
by that grace which He gives all his creatures in 
every condition of Christian life; but the super- 
natural perfects and completes the natural order; 
it is above, but not against it.* Convent life is a 
very rational existence; only a superficial and care- 
less observer could think otherwise. It fully meets 
the real needs of humanity; only useless details and 
caprices are eliminated from this life. It is said to 
oppose nature, but if so we must take nature as 
implying fantastic and irrational instincts; it in no 
way contradicts commonsense, or the real laws of 
nature, and is a life of moral and physical well- 
being. The practice of virtue does not consist in 
having extraordinary, and unnatural aims. The 


*It would be an entire misapprehension of my meaning, if from what I 
have written, and what is to follow, my readers should conclude that I mini- 
mize the share of Divine grace in the work of self-amendment ; an improve- 
ment which is necessary before we can be our best and highest selves. This 
grace is indeed indispensable, but I claim that we are rewarded for this subtle 
_ effort and labour, not only supernaturally (which would be quite sufficient) 
but in a human sense. I mean, and am trying to prove, that obedience to the 
Gospel counsels repays us not only in the world to come with eternal life, 
but here and now a thousandfold. 


269 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


spirit of renunciation, basis of all mystical and com- 
munity life, is so little opposed to human happiness 
that those who have no belief beyond matter and 
earth teach that to be happy we must do our duty; 
a duty which often calls for a sacrifice of taste, in- 
clination and personal interests to the good of the 
race and future generations of humanity. What is 
this but renunciation? Is not this language, in the 
mouths of the opponents of all religious ideas, a 
testimony in favour of my theory? Speaking of the 
renunciation and mortification so severely practised 
by Hindoos for thousands of years, Schopenhauer 
remarks that there is a deep-seated instinct of mor- 
tification at the basis of all human nature. ‘‘We 
have seen the wicked man suffering burning ago- 
nies of mind through his own obstinacy, and when 
all the objects of his desire are exhausted, quench- 
ing the furious thirst of his egoism in the spectacle 
of others’ woes; so the man who has reached the 
negation of the wish to live, however miserable, 
sad and full of renunciation be his apparent lot, is 
full of celestial peace and joy.” * 

Thus we come to admit that sacrifice and abne-. 
gation are part of our nature; it has a tendency to 
selfishness, but directly we have conquered this we 
are repaid by the approval of conscience, which 
naturally exists in every reasonable being. We are 
agreed that happiness is only to be found in duty 
fulfilled; but in what is called worldly life, we are 
tempted at every moment to leave duty for 
pleasure, or for the satisfaction of the moment 
which appeals to our weakness; we yield, and are 
soon disgusted and satiated; whereas, in the con- 
vent the same temptations may come, but more 


* Schopenhauer, ‘‘ The World as Will and Representation,” vol. I. 
270 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


rarely, and to help us resist them we have the 
rule and our Superior’s orders, and though these 
rules and orders may seem hard at the moment, 
they prove an efficient protection. Apart from 
the peace of a conscience at rest, the natural affec- 
tions are more durable and constant in the convent 
than elsewhere; complete satisfaction always leads 
to disenchantment, whereas self-denial keeps a per- 
petual glamour over our desires. 

Whether the Founders of Orders intended it 
or no, the mortifications prescribed in their holy 
institutions are precious antidotes against the dis- 
enchantments of life, as well as penances; and this 
is an excellent measure of psychological hygiene. 
The result of observing their rule is that nuns find 
both natural and supernatural happiness; they do 
not understand the philosophical reasons for this, 
but they reap the benefit, and that is sufficient. Such 
calculations of course are far from their thoughts. 
It is none the less true that a frequent obligation to 
keep silence gives a zest to the mildest conversa- 
tion, in the same way that habitual frugality adds 
a succulent flavour to the plainest of food. Parti- 
cular friendships and téte-a-téte conversations out 
of recreation time being forbidden, the charm of 
conversation is preserved intact. When we are not 
allowed to fully probe the hearts and minds of 
others, it becomes possible to believe in their sin- 
cerity and depth. Is it not a species of vanity to 
believe that we can always go on interesting the 
same person and be of interest ourselves? An 
electric fuse is not more quickly spent than we are, 
and our little stock of ideas and interesting senti- 
ments is soon exhausted. For man, that limited be- 
ing of boundless yearnings, happiness, like strength, 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


is only to be found in restraint, moderation and 
sobriety. 

It is sad to realize how limited are our powers 
of enjoying what we love, our powers of helping 
and consoling, our powers of grasping and assimi- 
lating new ideas and fresh knowledge, our power 
of creating the beautiful in art. In life as in art we 
must never strain execution to its utmost extent, 
for work produced by exhaustion is repellent, 
though our instinct is always to go beyond our 
strength. We must learn how to stop at the right 
moment. 

Alas, how our weak will is overwhelmed by 
the bewildering attractions of the unknown! A 
tangible rule followed by flesh and blood close to 
us is necessary to keep us within bounds. This is 
indispensable, for we have of ourselves so little 
joy, light, or comfort, to give others, that we can 
only keep up our influence and strength as long as 
they believe we have anything, and, alas, at best 
it is so little, to give! One of the bitterest things in 
life is to realize that nothing human lasts or en- 
dures; that we have only the passing moment. We 
watch in ourselves and others the slow decre- 
pitude and dissolution of feeling. Physical de- 
composition is horrible, but the disintegration of 
our feelings is sadder still. In the former, only the 
substance of our personality decays; in the latter, 
that identity itself dissolves and rots away. In 
youth it is an effort not to love creatures too well, 
so much charm and promise do some of them offer 
us; later, alas! the effort is to feel the proper 
amount of interest in them, so insignificant and va- 
pid do they seem. Do my readers remember the 


exquisite lines of Pére Gratry, in which he so 
272 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


touchingly describes the sadness of the human heart 
in the autumn of life, when hope and expectation 
have been disappointed? ‘‘ Yes, I feel indifference 
coming! I already understand in myself the cruel 
insensibility and the absolute selfishness of so many 
old people. In my youth the mere sight of a 
stranger entering into my life made my heart beat; 
I looked and hoped: I thought I had found a trea- 
sure! Have I not learned, by long experience, to 
expect nothing of any man? I know the limits of 
their hearts and minds. What have I to do with 
strangers? Do any men shape their lives on any 
definite basis? Do those who once loved me still re- 
member me? Often I have thought that I was 
really received into the soul of another, really be- 
loved! What remains of that hope? [ am no longer 
lovable or loving. In a short time I shall be alone, 
no one will hope for anything more from me, and 
I shall no longer hope anything from others. Yet 
I know that we nearly always grow oid alone, and 
die in solitude!”’* 

One great cause of discontent in men is that life 
is a means not an end. Death is not the destruction 
of human existence; it is, as the humble little cate- 
chism so profoundly says, ‘‘a transition.” This tran- 
sition is an integral part of a great plan, of which 
earthly life is but the beginning and preparation, 
and eternity the conclusion and end. In truth, I 
hardly venture to repeat such truisms, though it is 
only on the surface that they sound hackneyed. Of 
course, we learned all this before our first Com- 
munion, but are we quite sure that as the words 
engraved themselves in our memory, the impor- 
tant ideas for which they stood entered sufficiently 


*Gratry, ‘‘ De la Connaissance de I’ Ame.” 


273 | 18 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


into our mind to practically guide our ideas and 
feelings? I think not. The grosser side of our double 
nature is always apt to see life as an end in itself; 
hence our discontent and sadness, for we feel it 
always slipping relentlessly from our grasp, and 
each hour defrauds us. Only the thought of eternity 
and death courageously faced can remedy this. 
In the world this thought is dreaded and shunned; 
we put it aside as much as possible. We try to forget 
death; we avoid mentioning it, or if we do, we speak 
of it as of some malevolent power that can be ap- 
peased by profound homage when it approaches us. 

‘* «Nearly all nature is in a trance,’ says Bossuet. 
‘Man sleeps, and dreams that he is alive. The son 
of earth is lulled by his senses, as a child in its mo- 
ther’s womb; he forgets that he must wake and 
come to the birth. The soul sees, but the world is 
dim even to the soul and not transparent up to God. 
Man’s view is limited by the visible horizon, and 
cut off by the outline of a tangible earth. He be- 
lieves that space and atmosphere are void, the stars 
dust and the sun a lamp! He does not remember 
that the earth revolves and will disappear; he be- 
lieves it to be eternally immovable. On this solid 
basis the child of earth seeks to build an imperish- 
able dwelling. He will live and reign on earth, and 
enjoy his possessions. Then he sells his soul; it be- 
comes enslaved to the yoke and traditions of this 
world; riches, pleasures, honours, as they are con- 
sidered, and the usual means offered of gaining 
them; to all these things the soul is given up com- 
pletely, with all the heart and strength of man. 
Then the old procession of the satellites of this world 
take possession of the soul: ambition, avarice, envy, 


pride, hatred, fear, hope, rage and despair, leave 
274 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


it no peace. These violent passions rend it, while 
underneath goes on the insidious putrefaction of 
sensuality. Are not thousands and thousands of 
souls thus destroyed before our eyes? With eyes 
and ears closed, they go on their fatal way till 
overtaken by death! 

‘*Happy the soul which foresees such an ending, 
while yet at the outset of life! Happy the vigorous 
souls and lucid minds that look to the end of the 
journey! Happy they who, watching men run like 
sheep to destruction, draw back, and choose the 
path which leads to life! Happy, I say, are the clear- 
seeing minds who look, and think, and meditate 
on what the others forget. What is their meditationP 
Death! Happy they who understand that they are 
moving on, who do not believe themselves for ever 
fixed to solid earth, and who see life as it is, a 
rapid transition ending in death! A man rouses him- 
self from his dream. He wakes; his eyes open; he 
sees things as they are, the beginning and end, life 
and death. Perhaps he does not understand. Per- 
haps he looks on death as nothingness, neutralizing 
and effacing all that is vital. But newly emancipated 
from the gross joys of the senses, the soul is empty, 
hungry, wretched, and seized with fear at the ter- 
rible image of inevitable death! It plunges back, 
affrighted into sleep; but its slumbers will only be 
feverish and fitful, until it finds a basis for its wa- 
king life. 

‘*This basis can only be wisdom, true science, 
real faith, union with the one thing that is stable, 
the one thing that never passes, the one thing that 
knows not death. If the soul, in its despair, reach 
God; if at this supreme crisis, it rise instead of fall- 


ing, then another state has begun. But how so we 
275 © 18a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


explain what this other state is? It is the recog- 
nition and real understanding of Death. It is life 
lived beyond its present limits.” * 

‘* Yes, but we are afraid to die. This is useless, 
for we have to die. Whatever comes, we have to 
die. What have you to loseP Why not use death to 
glorify life? Why not enlarge the soul’s outlook, and 
even in this world overleap the barriers of this short 
and limited lifeP But fear keeps men enslaved to 
the present, bound within known limits and fet- 
tered with all their ancient chains. The mass of 
men who turn their backs on death to escape it 
are death’s flock. Death is the shepherd, and hu- 
man beings the sheep. The more they turn their 
backs, the more death strikes! The quicker they 
run, the heavier is the burden bound on them! 
But what shall we say of the man who turns round, 
faces death, and makes towards itP Understand 
this thoroughly: the man who faces death is really 
going away from it. That is manifest. He meets 
death, it is true; but freely, with his eyes open, up- 
right, and face to face. He passes through death, 
and death has passed for him. Death is God’s re- 
pelling force, it drives back void and nothingness, 
wickedness and lying, from the soul which it has 
separated from the body, and takes away the in- 
nate and acquired obstacles which keep our souls 
from God. Death breaks down our barriersand leads 
us across the breach. We pass to the other side, free, 
purified, regenerated; to enter the central sphere of 
attraction, and the region of evergrowing life.” 

My readers must forgive this long quotation. Or 
rather they ought to thank me for these lines 


*Gratry, ‘‘De la Connaissance de I’Ame,” vol. I. 
t Gratry, ‘‘ De la Connaissance de I’Ame,” vol. II. 


276 


THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 


which are the perfection of thought and expression. 
Pére Gratry, from whom I have so largely bor- 
rowed, is seldom quoted or studied as he deserves 
to be. Among the few who know his work, some 
say, ‘‘ His remedies are too high and inaccessible.” 
This is a great mistake. The humblest nun in a 
village convent daily puts into practice this high 
philosophy, though I am quite ready to admit that 
she may not understand it in theory. The obser- 
vance of the Rule teaches nuns and obliges them 
to believe that life is only a temporary means to 
an end. They have to consider eternity in a prac- 
tical way, as the sole aim of existence, to be kept 
constantly in view, with little interruption from 
passinginterests. Peaceand harmony fill their hearts, 
there is no conflict between their aspirations and 
' the passing flight of all things, a flight which ap- 
proaching age would vainly try to stem. It is true 
that the love and possession of God, to which tend 
all the efforts of religious life, seem to rise ever 
higher and higher out of their reach, but their goal 
grows ever clearer and more beautiful to their un- 
tiring gaze. This is life ‘‘in religion”: detachment 
from surrounding objects, attachment to the real 
aim of life, the aim that gives it true worth and 
meaning, self-control, moderation in desires, com- 
plete development of the soul in all its powers. 
Surely in all this there is indeed nothing opposed 
to reasonable human nature. This is why nuns who 
‘seek first the kingdom of God” have ‘‘all the rest 
added unto them”—all the rest, that is to say all 
they can have in this world: peace, deep happiness 
and joys which are rendered stable by that indis- 
pensable renunciation and restraint which we so 


seldom know how to impose upon ourselves. 
277 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


@, IV. Living with the Blind 


IFE is influenced far more by outward im- 
pressions than by reason, and among them, 
as I have said before, those of sight are the 

most vivid. That is why people do not stop to con- 

sider whether blindness be the worst of all afflic- 
tions; they instinctively dread it more than any 
other, perhaps because it cannot be hidden and it 
so completely isolates them from the outer world. 
The dread of becoming blind makes people shrink 
from mixing or even meeting with the blind. Of 
course it is well known that it is far more dis- 
tressing to live with imbeciles or the insane, or with 
anyone dying of an incurable disease. But sight is 
so apt to seek sight that the first impression of 
closed or lifeless eyes is like death, and nothing 
strikes us as so sad as a group of blind faces. It 
would appear that to those who have never asso- 
ciated with the blind the prospect of living with 
them is really alarming. They imagine an extra- 
ordinary world peopled with unhappy shadows, 
with ideas and language apart, a world of difficulty 
where nothing less than a daily, hourly sacrifice 
can give the poor victims what they require as ne- 
cessities. This imaginary idea and the desire of 
immolation is what attracts some souls who are 
eager for self-sacrifice, and enrols them among Mére 

Bergunion’s daughters. They are much surprised 

later on to find themselves sometimes assisted or 

waited on by blind women, or when, for instance, they 


first hear a blind nun read aloud in the refectory. 
278 


LIVING WITH THE BLIND 


But if life among the Blind Nuns, who are speci- 
ally chosen, is not what they feared, what of the 
other inmates? Certainly self-abnegation and com- 
plete devotion to duty and the daily task are neces- 
sary everywhere, and I do not pretend that those 
Nuns of St Paul who can see are not called upon 
to practise these excellent virtues. I merely mean 
to say that blindness does not expose them to any 
especially dreadful ordeal. To leave abstractions 
and come to details, we find that in all that con- 
cerns material life, cooking nuns, linen-keepers, 
housekeepers, portresses or collecting sisters, need 
no more and no less perseverance in their daily 
tasks of making soup, washing and mending, keep- 
‘ing accounts, dismissing troublesome visitors and 
climbing the staircases of likely benefactors, than 
do nuns who are similarly employed in orphanages 
or refuges in no way connected with the blind. 

That is all very well, you may say, but what of 
personal association with the blind? That must re- 
quire so much patience and self-sacrifiee. Are they 
not difficult to get on with; sour, bad-tempered, 
depressing? We must distinguish between those who 
were born blind or became so in childhood and 
those who lose their sights as adults. Blind children 
have the faults common to childhood. Atavism, 
health, early training, and contact with other chil- 
dren of the same age affect their dispositions far 
more than does their affliction. Blindness, when it 
comes before adolescence, rarely affects the moral 
character; later it is different, when projects for 
the future, hopes and habits have to be abruptly 
_ relinquished. Rarely can a blind person resign him- 
self until many years of struggle and painful disap- 


pointment have passed; he is out of his bearings in 
279 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


every sense of the word; the moral ordeal is severe 
and may very seriously affect his character. 

The blessed refuge of St Paul’s is open to such 
poor derelicts, and, indeed, it has a special mission 
to them, a task full of loving tact and sympathy. 
It is necessary to fight against the despondency 
which threatens to overwhelm the newly blind. 
They do not try to make up for sight, because they 
always hope to recover it and find it so difficult to 
do without it. They feel a kind of shame and hu- 
miliation in their affliction; they are conscious, far 
too conscious in fact, of an inferiority and depend- 
ence which is really more felt by themselves than 
those about them; such feelings must sadden, but 
need not humiliate. They shrink from entering an 
institution for the blind, fancying that such a step 
will aggravate and render their blindness hopeless, 
whereas it is their best remedy—that is to say, the 
surest means of learning to be independent. Natur- 
ally, to find oneself in a house where no one can 
see lessens to a great extent the sense of inferiority 
and shyness; then, contact with blind people who 
can easily do a great deal that one had thought im- 
possible, gives confidence, and life does not look so 
hopeless as before. Victims of recent blindness 
cross the threshold of the Rue Denfert Convent 
with great apprehension, and for the first few weeks 
require the greatest care and devotion. We have 
seen that blind children require to be taught quan- 
tities of things which normal children pick up them- 
selves without effort or lessons. Often such children 
have been neglected in their homes, and have to 
learn everything down to the humblest details, but 
only a few nuns are told off to such duties as this 


entails. 
280 


LIVING WITH THE BLIND 


There are several ways of looking after young or 
adult blind people; if all these are praiseworthy for 
their motives, some are open to criticism as pro- 
ducing questionable results. Some people who live 
with the blind imagine that it is best to do every- 
thing for them, not leaving them the initiative or 
the trouble of making a single movement; this is a 
serious error, for by waiting on blind people to 
this extent, we make them slaves as well as our- 
selves. 

Other more ingenious persons think it a mark of 
delicate sympathy to push towards them without 
their knowledge anything they want or are looking 
for, so as to ‘‘keep up the illusion of finding it 
alone.” This forethought is more kind than wise; 
first of all, the blind person can hear, if he cannot 
see, and in many cases will detect the pious fraud; 
nothing is sadder than to find ourselves deceived, 
even with the kindest of motives; it is treating us 
as children or as degenerates, and with all the will 
in the world to make us forget our infirmity it re- 
calls it, by touching us on the sorest spot of all. 
Further, by acting in this way, we do not learn, or 
become accustomed, to find anything for ourselves. 

No, this is not true forethought; real, enlightened, 
efficacious devotion consists, as I have said before, 
in rendering a blind person as independent as pos- 
sible. To obtain this result, we must guide and help 
him with the utmost kindness and patience, as 
often and as long as it is really necessary, but no 
farther. Real consideration for the blind is shown 
by being very tidy, always replacing objects and 
furniture in the same place, and never leaving un- 
expected obstacles in the way; half-open doors, 


household articles (such as brooms, jugs and buc- 
281 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


kets), when forgotten, in passages, are the great- 
est impediments to the blind; nothing warns them 
of the sharp edge of the door, which they have 
charged against, nor the bucket half-way up the 
stairs, which they upset as they fall over it. 

We must be always ready to use our eyes for 
blind people when they really require aid, but the 
greatest kindness is to help them to dispense with as- 
sistance as much as possible. Say you are in the 
same room with a blind person: you see that he is 
looking for some object which has either been 
moved, or is where he cannot find it; the best plan 
is to sit still and tell him where the object is, even 
if rather difficult to find; firstly, because he will be 
delighted with his own success, and secondly, be- 
cause he will find it more easily next time. It has 
been said that the truest charity is for the rich to 
enable the poor to help themselves; this is very 
true, and the real duty of the man who can see, 
and who is always rich compared to the blind man, 
is to make the latter independent of help, not out of 
selfishness, or to flatter the blind man’s ‘‘amour- 
propre,” but because it isa manifest duty to relieve 
such a terrible misfortune. 

Some of the nuns with eyesight excel in this; such 
was the dear Sister Mary Magdalene, one of the 
martyrs of May 4, 1897, as I have said before. 
From tradition, personal observation and the grace 
of God (the Nuns of St Paul add to the three vows 
that of devotion to the blind), she was wonderfully 
successful in her mission, which was to initiate the 
blind new-comers into an independent existence. 
People who are thoroughly accustomed to the blind 
gradually forget their affliction, and leave them to 


move about freely, without rushing at them each 
282 


LIVING WITH THE BLIND 


time they do not go straight towards the right chair. 
They get to understand that in some cases blind 
people find it easier to move in a way of their own, 
and that to them the direct way is not always the 
shortest; often some landmark will be found by 
going in a roundabout fashion, as I have explained 
at great length in an earlier chapter. Officious fus- 
siness is always unpleasant, and to the blind it may 
become more trying and inconvenient than even 
careless neglect. 

When first the community was founded, blind 
and normal nuns used to be assembled in separate 
groups, so as to exhort the former to resignation 
and the latter to gratitude; now all goes smoothly, 
there is no longer juxtaposition, but fusion, of the 
two elements. Both classes of nuns consider them- 
selves Sisters of St Paul—that says everything; and 
if preferences or special friendships were allowed 
in convents, they would most often be between a 
blind and a normal nun. On January 25 and Octo- 
ber 24, there are general rejoicings; on the day of 
St Paul’s Conversion the nuns with eyesight have a 
festival for the blind, and on St Raphael’s Day the 
blind sisters return the compliment. 

It would be a great mistake to imagine the seeing 
nuns as ‘‘Marthas,” entirely taken up with exte- 
rior works; and the blind nuns as ‘‘ Maries,” per- 
petually kneeling before the tabernacle and choos- 
ing ‘‘the better part.” A purely physical difference 
cannot make such a line of demarcation; some nuns 
who can see have more contemplative souls than 
some of their blind sisters. It is the interior appeal 
of our Lord that makes ‘‘ Maries,” and not the lack 
or possession of any one physical sense. Tasks are 


divided and portioned off according to each indivi- 
283 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


dual’s aptitudes; some very important ones fall to 
the blind, such as music, some branches of scholas- 
tic teaching, and training to the brush-work and 
printing. 

In searching the annals of the community we see 
still more intricate tasks confided to blind nuns; a 
certain Sister Mary Amelia, whilst the congrega- 
tion was unavoidably divided between Bourg-la- 
Reine and Paris, took the direction of the former 
group; Sister Mary Dosithea, treasurer, becoming 
totally blind, continued her avocation most success- 
fully, being only assisted in the mechanical work of 
book-keeping by a young novice; the real manage- 
ment falling entirely on the Sister. 

General opinion exaggerates both the sacrifice 
and the merit of living with the blind, but it would 
ill become me, personally, to insist on this. I should 
indeed be grieved if anyone could accuse me of 
belittling people with eyesight and over-praising 
the blind. I merely wish to give a just idea of the 
matter, and the following are the words of a woman 
who can see, and who teaches in a blind school, 
written to a nurse-teacher at Bicétre: ‘‘ People are 
always talking of our self-sacrifice, but it is really 
nothing to yours.” This she wrote after visiting the 
school-hospital section, set aside for the idiot, epi- 
leptic and half-paralysed children of the institution. 
And indeed I know nothing so lamentable as these 
victims of terrible mental and bodily infirmities; 
they are hardly more than animals, and their souls 
are completely atrophied. But it is not because nuns 
with eyesight are not obliged to look after the blind, 
as hospital-nurses attend to babies or sick people 
with perpetual and unsleeping care, that their devo- 


tion is any the less admirable, nor their task less 
284 | 


LIVING WITH THE BLIND 


attractive to souls in love with self-sacrifice. It 
would be a new theory for self-sacrifice to be gauged 
by the difficulty or horror of its task! It is quite 
possible to devote our whole selves in the most 
admirable way to a relatively easy mission, such 
as, for instance, the education of charming, gifted 
children; and on the other hand, people have been 
mercenary, selfish and self-conscious, whilst taking 
care of the most wretched and degenerate of crea- 
tures. God alone can judge of each one’s merits; it 
is enough for us to know that there is a great deal 
to be done and suffered at St Paul’s for the blind, 
and that those who enter are urged to ‘‘ empty 
themselves.” 

Surely that appeals strongly enough to souls de- 
termined on abnegation. 


285 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


CONCLUSION 


The Future of the Congregation 


T may seem strange that after forty years’ ex- 

istence the Congregation of the Blind Nuns of 

St Paul should still be so small. It consists of 
one small house containing barely sixty nuns; and 
is very little known even in the religious and charit- 
able world.* Some people might therefore ask if 
the community fulfils a real want, and if it has a 
future as a congregation or an enterprise? I have 
no doubt myself on this point, and I will end my 
book by giving my reasons. 

Of course there is no question of such a develop- 
ment as that of the Sisters of Charity, the Little 
Sisters of the Poor, or any other congregation de- 
voted to the care of the unfortunate of every age, 
children, adults and old people. Now that family 
life is so scattered and disorganized, out of every 
thousand inhabitants (especially in towns) at least 
twenty need to enter refuges or require in their 
own homes the daily care of persons outside their 
families. Hundreds of congregations, whose object 
is to look after the ‘poor and sick, undertake this 
work. 

As for the blind, there is only one to every thou- 
sand, or 40,000 in France and Algeria; out of these 
40,000, a fourth may be considered as beyond want; 


* A few months ago, the Valentin Haiiy Association for the Welfare of 
the Blind opened a school at Chilly-Mazarin (Seine-et-Oise), the first which 
has ever existed in France, for those backward or idiot children who are 
ineligible for any other institutions. The Association have asked the Nuns 
of St Paul to send a few blind and normal nuns to serve this modest but most 
useful little establishment. 

286 


THE FUTURE OF THE CONGREGATION 


there remain 30,000, a serious contingent to require 
help. Out of 40,000 blind, how many girls under 
thirty are eligible as nuns? About 1,800. We ask 
ourselves if this number can be sure of enough vo- 
cations to develop the Congregation? On the other 
hand, is a special Congregation required for work 
among the blind? Is its existence justified other- 
wise than by the satisfaction it affords to blind girls 
set on the religious life P Would the charitable work 
of the Nuns of St Paul really answer to a want, if 
developed and multiplied? This seems to me the 
way to consider the question. Is there a tendency 
to increase in the number of girls who feel drawn 
to the religious life P Of course, if their numbers did 
not grow, it would be impossible to enlarge the con- 
gregation. Everything points to such an increase. 
Every day more little blind girls enter special 
schools, and all these schools give them an essen- 
tially religious education. A still greater number of 
blind, trained from childhood and brought into con- 
tact with others (and this may suggest to them to 
devote their lives to the welfare of their afflicted 
fellow-creatures) with a much wider reputation for 
the Congregation—these would be very favourable 
conditions for increasing the number of vocations. 
Even now the Superior unfortunately cannot re- 
ceive all the blind postulants who present them- 
selves, because of the dearth of normal ones. 

Are we to consider this as a definite state of 
affairs? Is there any very serious reason for this 
lack of novices with eyesight? It is mainly acciden- 
tal, and quite remediable. As seven out of every 
thousand girls enter religion, why should not a 
few of them turn their steps towards our dear com- 


munity, if it became better known? Why should not 
287 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL | 


such a devout and sympathetic Congregation find 
workers, as so many others do, for its own special 
mission? We live in a time of specialities, even in 
vocations and charitable work: people have prefe- 
rences even in the forms of misery they devote 
themselves to alleviating. Congregations also are 
induced by the growing complexity of needs and 
interests, and the variety of knowledge necessary 
for utility in any one branch, to concentrate and 
define their work. 

Although, thank God, blindness is not wide- 
spread. enough to feed the zeal of such a charitable 
army as the Daughters of St Vincent de Paul, it 
claims enough virtues to call for, and utilize, a 
special Congregation. Hitherto our community has 
only looked after girls and women, who with 
the exception of blindness, are able-bodied and 
sane, a few old ladies and lay-boarders; but its 
aims might be much wider, as the Constitutions 
allow of any work tending to the intellectual, moral 
and physical welfare of the blind, whatever their 
age, sex or antecedents. Thus in addition, the con- 
gregation could start: Infant Schools for little boys 
from three to nine years old, workshops for appren- 
tices, family boarding houses for work-girls, school 
asylums for imbecile and backward girls, and 
Homes for old people of both sexes. 

Why indeed, should it not start special Homes 
for the aged blind? At the present time in France 
the following communities work for the blind: 
Soeurs de la Sagesse, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of 
Mary Immaculate, Dominicans of the Immaculate 
Conception, Sisters of Providence, Sisters of St 
Charles, Sisters of Mary, Sisters of St Paul of 


Chartres, etc., etc., they all vie with each other in 
288 


THE FUTURE OF THE CONGREGATION 


zeal, but the fact remains that they have not been 
specially trained for the work. Now our Sisters of 
St Paul, on the contrary, are naturally and super- 
naturally fitted for it; their special vow, their graces 
and the mere fact of blind and normal nuns having 
lived only for the blind from the beginning of their 
novitiate give them every facility for acquiring all 
the necessary technical knowledge. 

It is generally recognized that for teaching blind 
children and training adults in all the mechanical 
groundwork of a trade, blind people, and still 
more blind nuns, are the most useful. But when 
we have got the teachers and the forewomen, eye- 
sight is necessary to examine certain details which 
the blind woman may miss or take too long to 
execute; this is where nuns with eyesight, and 
accustomed from the novitiate to mix withthe blind, 
are so invaluable. 

It would be unwise to have a monopoly of either 
blind or normal sisters, for emulation is essentially 
wholesome to everything human, but still, when 
the Nuns of St Paul are able to have several con- 
vents, a good plan would be to relieve those estab- 
lishments that only take care of the blind as an 
extra to their usual work, and would be very 
pleased to get rid of them. And even under present 
conditions there are many blind girls, widows, 
wives whose husbands have abandoned them, and 
poor old women whose sight is almost gone, drag- 
ging out a miserable existence, and perpetually 
trying to get into homes. These homes and refuges 
are always full, there are endless difficulties about 
being admitted, and often in the end the poor crea- 
tures are very uncomfortable. 


Imagine what must be the entry and subsequent 
289 19 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


existence of a poor blind woman, awkward, shy 
and miserable, amongst women who are mostly 
coarse and wanting in the rudiments of refined 
feeling, a population presided over by a ‘‘fin-de- 
siécle” matron who neglects her business, and 
whose thoughts are miles away! Go into one of the 
huge hospital wards which contain more than a 
hundred beds, where a poor blind woman must feel 
lost! Watch her and her companions, and if any of 
them are kind and good-natured, there will be 
plenty to laugh and jeer at the poor creature, whom 
they never call anything but the ‘‘blind ’un.” They 
play tricks on her and then say, ‘‘Oh, the blind 
’un’s knocked herself again; all the better, it’s a 
very good thing!” And the idleness—days and days 
of doing absolutely nothing! Some, for the sem- 
blance of an occupation, are reduced to pushing a 
pin in and out of the quilt for hours together. And 
the loneliness, the forlorn heart-ache of feeling that 
neither to-day, nor to-morrow, nor ever on earth 
will they be anything to anyone, that all is over; 
they are only units and hospital-numbers for the 
governors to register! 

Well, these sufferings, and I call them moral tor- 
tures, could be avoided in hospitals and special 
homes served by sisters understanding the care of 
the blind. No more jeers, as all around are also 
blind; no more idleness, the nuns know how to 
teach some sort of employment to all; no more for- 
lorn loneliness! To the sisters, whether blind or 
normal, each poor inmate is some one, some one 
with a past, with aspirations, with an eternal future; 
a soul and not a bed-number! Could not the con- 
gregation also look after blind old men (whom Holy 
Scripture pities for having only ‘‘men’s hearts and 


THE FUTURE OF THE CONGREGATION 


hands” to minister to them), since it was founded 
to relieve all the sorrows of blindness? It is quite 
evident that ten or fifteen congregations of blind 
nuns in France (and why should they not cross 
the frontier like so many others?) with several 
abroad, in Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and 
Canada, could soon be filled with nunsand boarders. 
Means would not be lacking: who would refuse a 
blind nun begging for blind children and old people P 

We have seen that St Paul’s has a place among 
congregations devoted to charitable work, and that 
it may and ought to increase. It remains to be seen 
(and perhaps to be logical I ought to have begun 
by this) whether in the society of the future zeal 
inspired by religion will still find a place, and whe- 
ther hospitable communities will continue to have 
social duties as in the past. There are several classes 
of people who do not believe in the social future of 
congregations. First there are the evolutionists, 
absolute innovators who taboo charitable work and 
say with Herbert Spencer: ‘‘It may be doubted 
whether the maudlin philanthropy which, looking 
only at direct mitigations, ignores indirect mischiefs, 
does not inflict more misery than the extremest 
selfishness inflicts.” * 

‘*The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that 
come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, 
and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the 
strong, which leave so many in ‘shallows and in 
miseries,’ are the decrees of a far-seeing bene- 
volence.”’} 


* Herbert Spencer, ‘‘The Study of Sociology.” 

t+ Herbert Spencer, ‘‘ Social Statics.” 
. Some even venture to push the theory to its final solution; such as M. 
Lapouge, for instance, who has the questionable courage of his written and 
spoken opinions, and wishes to improve humanity by helping to eliminate as 
quickly as possible all morally or physically defective subjects, which rank 


291 19a 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


Then come those who believe that humanity will 
soon have become so perfect that men will under- 
stand their duties towards each other without any 
metaphysical considerations, and in fulfilling them 
will feel such keen satisfaction as will amply repay 
them and induce them to persevere. The first of 
these two categories are essentially utilitarian ma- 
terialists—and we have seen to what lengths their 
views lead them—the second are idealists. Given 
up to natural motives only, man can certainly love 
and help his fellows, but if he stops at these almost 
instinctive feelings, he will seldom go far on the 
road to sacrifice. Natural instincts suffice to hinder 
us from evil, and even encourage us to do good, 
but they are not strong enough to help us to really 
painful self-sacrifice under hard conditions. Only 
a transcendent motive can spur us to self-abnega- 
tion, the love of God urging us to exceed the evan- 
gelical precepts addressed to mere nature, and to 
obey the counsels of perfection which surpass it. 
Then come more practical people; they have no 
unlimited confidence in the mutual immolation of 
mankind simply from altruism, but they will not 
consent at any price to allow religion or religious 
to have any influence over modern society. So, as 
they know that religion is the richest mine of zeal 
and devotion, they propose to do without self- 
sacrifice or even good will, and to demand every- 
thing as a legal right. These are the exponents of 
special theories, who, although professing to love 
their fellow-creatures, would sacrifice them to their 


own particular views. 


equally in his eyes. His ideal is to create vast homes on a new plan, to which 
poor, vicious and degenerate beings would be attracted and congregate; as 
these are numerous, the establishments would be like whole towns, and vice 
would be encouraged by multiplying opportunities of debauch, so as to hasten 
the work of natural selection. a 


THE FUTURE OF THE CONGREGATION 


Finally there are the timid spirits, men in Govern- 
ment appointments of a type well known in France, 
who with true Latin temperament prefer uni- 
formity and safety to everything. They must have 
everything protected and sanctified by law; they 
believe that the State alone is rich, powerful, last- 
ing and strong enough to supply every kind of 
assistance to every modern need.* When friends 
of the poor are such people as Saint Vincent de 
Paul, M. Le Prévost, Jeanne Jugan, or Mme 
Garnier, they begin gradually, on their own re- 
sources, to take care of a few poor people; they 
have no dreams of transforming humanity, but only 
wish to work modestly at the harvest of their 
heavenly Father. Then they seek for brothers and 
sisters to join their work, and a little congregation 
is born. With time and God’s blessing it grows and 
alleviates much misery; it does real good without 
claiming to do away with all the distress that is in 
the world. 

But when such a friend of the poor is a philanthro- 
pist, he immediately strives to act upon the poor 
in categories of those who specially interest him; 
he appeals to the State, and presents an address to 
Parliament proposing a law which shall bear his 
name and make him famous, if indeed there be any 
fame connected with anything which is often so 
ephemeral as a law. 

I may say, in passing, that in our day it requires 


*A governor of charitable institutions sends us the following words of a 
functionary of the Public Charity Organization: ‘‘‘ What is the use of all your 
efforts?’ lately asked an inspector devoted to our cause. ‘Can we not do 
all that you do? You are poor, we are rich; you meet with endless difficul- 
ties because you are so little known, but every one knows the Government. 
You are full of zeal and enthusiasm now, but the future of your work de- 
' pends on your being succeeded by men as zealous. You are condemned to 
death, but Governments are eternal. . . . Government has incontestable 
advantages over you, and I cannot see that you have any over Government.’” 


293 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


very strong faith in the State to be so confident; but 
some people believe in Government to an almost 
superstitious extent ;they think that the State ought to 
settle all charitable questions, that Government has 
remedies for all sorts of distress, and that money 
will do everything. But what is the use of laws 
and rules, if personal example does not influence 
the wills, and consequently the morals of mankind? 
Laws, however well conceived, are only mechanism, 
they are not enough; we want men, and no rule, 
however practical, ever made a man; rules are no 
good without moral obligations, and for each sepa- 
rate individual to resolve to obey them requires 
an interior effort far exceeding any legal power. 

In conclusion, we must ask ourselves whether 
the gratuitous and complete devotion of a few to the 
succour and help of their weaker fellow-creatures 
be really necessary to the welfare of humanity? 
Positivists do not think so. Their theory is that in 
days gone by the fear of hell produced great sacri- 
fices; but that as this terroris bound to be ‘‘ dispelled 
by the light of progress,” almsgiving and self-abnega- 
tion will also vanish, and that nowadays we must 
have recourse to force, otherwise law, in order to 
defray the necessary expenses of those who make 
a profession of charity. ‘‘Modern society neither 
can nor ought to depend on the good will of a few 
more or less unbalanced ascetics for the bringing 
up of orphans and the care of the old, infirm and 
sick.” 

The Church, on the contrary, believes in human 
liberty; she believes that the self-sacrifice of indi- 
viduals to the masses will be always needed and 
always forthcoming. She says to*those who are not 


content to follow the Evangelical Precepts only, but 
294 


THE FUTURE OF THE CONGREGATION 


wish to obey the Counsels of Perfection, and to 
those who long to spend themselves in the service 
of their fellow-creatures, ‘‘Come, offer yourselves”’; 
and knowing that the difference between ordinary 
kindness and the complete surrender of self can 
only be bridged over by supernatural aid, she places 
all her spiritual graces at the service of those brave 
souls. Then she turns to the world of Christians 
and says, ‘‘ To love our neighbour as ourselves is 
not obligatory but of precept; therefore you are 
not required to give of your necessaries, but out of 
your superfluity,” and she merely holds out her 
hands. That is all; and millions of money always 
have been sent, and will be, in answer to her ap- 
peal. In olden days they took the form of vines, 
meadows, forests, measures of wheat, oil or wine; 
now they are in copper, silver or bank-notes. 

We must make up our minds that in the world, 
as it exists, all things cannot be regulated before- 
hand by law; fixed conventions leave no room for 
good impulses, such as devotion on the one side and 
gratitude on the other. Associations, like some men 
when they reach their full stature, are intoxicated 
with their own strength, knowledge and success; 
such men refuse to be under obligations to anyone, 
particularly to the living, such as relations or neigh- 
bours, whom they consider much inferior to them- 
selves in intelligence and science. In the same way 
our modern associations that require rules, tariffs 
and payment for everything imagine that they thus 
escape the obligation of gratitude. Poor wise men! 
They do not understand that one of the few joys in 
_ this world is to give or receive all! 

Iknow, too, that ideas germinateand fructify in the 
masses as well as in the classes; the poor, tainted and 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


intoxicated with so-called democracy, refuse any 
help which calls for personal gratitude to indivi- 
duals. They prefer to be helped collectively by the 
State, imagining that this preserves their indepen- 
dence. But State help, always costly, and often badly 
carried out, does not produce results proportionate 
to its expenses. Charitable Associations and Socie- 
ties, while sparing the susceptibilities of the poor, 
yet use rich people’s money to the best advantage; 
they are therefore preferable; they respond to a 
necessity, and can have no better agents than re- 
ligious congregations. 

I cannot say that I absolutely agree with certain 
persons, who are so over-zealous that they consider 
charitable enterprises the sole remedies for all social 
troubles,and would think it reasonable to haveathou- 
sand orphanages, hospitals or refuges, in every town 
of 50,000 inhabitants. No, my ideal would be to pro- 
tect deserving families against reverses, suchasslack 
times in trade, illness or even the premature death 
of parents; because, if several members of the same 
stock live together, the family home can resist ill- 
luck, the family can bring up orphans, look after 
the sick or take care of the aged among themselves 
and become a kind of society where the patronage 
of the poor by the rich would be patriarchal, simple 
and natural. But this indeed is an ideal; in reality 
many people are obliged to devote themselves to 
the alleviation of distress. Hence religious congre- 
gations are and perhaps always will be necessary 
to charitable enterprise. 

I have not alluded to the assistance and fruitful- 
ness of prayer, a force of which our inattentive 
minds are disposed to make light, not remembering 


that the rivulet hidden among the mountains is as 
296 


THE FUTURE OF THE CONGREGATION 


essential as the fountain springing up in the market- 
place, since the former feeds the latter. And which 
of us, in our dark hours or moments of loneliness, 
has not remembered, with a gleam of comfort and 
hope, that while we suffer, pure and holy souls, 
nuns and children, pray for us who are unknown 
to them? Faithful to the beautiful old monastic 
tradition, they never let the day end without beg- 
ging the Lord to have pity on ‘‘travellers, the 
sick and the dying.” When social conditions were 
in their infancy the religious orders originated and 
maintained civilization; I imagine that only very 
prejudiced persons would dispute their utility in 
the past. Now that advanced civilization, facility of 
communication, material independence, impatience 
of control, luxury and many other physical and 
material causes have dislocated family life, and that 
individuals instead of families are considered as so- 
cial units, on many occasions the individual finds 
himself stranded, because man was never intended 
to live alone or to be a law unto himself. He needs 
help and care at each extremity of his life. 

Individuals have insisted on throwing off the 
shackles of family life: well and good, but then 
voluntary assemblages must replace natural groups, 
and what better substitute could there be than 
those animated by the spirit of faith? 

Religious employed by vocation and choice in the 
service of the poor, the weak and the sick, will 
always do their work better than salaried func- 
tionaries, however well meaning. Doubtless human 
nature will always be the same, and even Religious 
may sometimes so far forget themselves as to speak 
harshly to those they are serving, when the latter 
are exacting, bad-tempered or ungrateful, ‘‘Only 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


the love of God could compensate us for looking 
after anyone like you!” Certainly, it is ungracious 
to speak like this, and it rarely occurs; but it is 
better than hearing lay workers say, ‘‘No one 
would look after you if they hadn’t to get their 
living by it.” Religious cannot be replaced by the 
laity, however devoted.* 

How are we to get celibates outside the religious 
life, and how can we do without the manifest ad- 
vantages of their state P My readers will remember, 
in Ibsen’s wonderful drama, ‘‘ Brand,” the scene of 
the little presbytery garden in the icy wind, that 
poignant and human situation, where the Lutheran 
minister is between the terrible alternative of sacri- 
ficing his duty as father and husband to his duty as 
a minister of religion. 

Furthermore, there is the confidence and security 
of those who have to apply to us. Do we not daily 
see persons in the world, after remaining unmarried 
for years and entirely devoting themselves to some 
work, suddenly marrying and remarking: ‘‘ Noth- 
ing in my life will be altered. Where I worked 
alone, we shall be two, and the work will gain by 
the change.” This is nearly always an illusion; chil- 
dren, illness, scarcity of means, all impediments 
which cannot be discounted, take up, and legiti- 
mately, the best of the worker’s strength. Indeed, to 
be a father or mother in the fulfilment of every duty 
is sufficiently absorbing, it is the first and best of 
careers, but such a parent can no longer give others 
more than his or her spare time or cash; and chari- 


* Doctor Després, in one of his speeches at the Municipal Council of Paris, 
said, ‘‘I do not say that nuns have a monopoly of self-sacrifice, but what I 
maintain is that they alone have the means” (‘‘Les Sceurs Hospitaliéres,” 
speech made Nov. 24, 1885). And indeed, only Religious conform to St Paul’s 
words to Timothy: ‘‘But having food, and wherewith to be covered, with 
these we are content.” 


298 


THE FUTURE OF THE CONGREGATION 


table organizations cannot live on superfluities, they 
want morethanthat,and employ our utmost energies. 

On the other hand, lay celibacy generally means 
an isolation in which mankind pines: ‘‘It is not good 
for man to be alone,” and it is only a strong tie, 
like that of religion, which can bind several people 
in that unity of will necessary for any lasting enter- 
prise. This tie need not be apparent, it need entail 
no special dress nor long binding engagement; in 
our day several of these Congregations are to be 
found, and though the common herd do not know 
of their existence, they are true religious communi- 
ties and not lay societies. 

Another reason tells in favour of nuns; when we 
come to the bed-rock of things, social questions 
cannot be divorced from moral ones; the real re- 
medy for distress and the true preventive of un- 
happiness is the observance of moral law, of the 
Decalogue. Here comes in our ‘‘object lesson”; we 
see that only a nun with a definite religion (i.e., 
Christianity) can ensure such observance. Who is 
better fitted than a Religious to teach and practise 
the DecalogueP And as everything in this world is 
really in harmony, we find that the progress of in- 
dividualism, which gives a new and undeniable 
function to religious Congregations, multiplies vo- 
cations as far as natural causes go; many young girls 
who ‘are disinclined for marriage feel that if they 
remain single they will have no home and no family 
life. They realize that with all its drawbacks home 
life is a safeguard and a background, and not having 
natural ties of affection, they seek spiritual ones. 
Here, again, we see that the same tendency and 
movement which creates the want supplies the re- 
medy; for which may Gad be praised! 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


The Religious Congregations are not approaching 
their dissolution, and true friends of the poor, even 
if they have no religious sense themselves, ought to 
rejoice to see communities flourish. If they them- 
selves will agree to put the interests of the poor 
above their own social or religious theories, they 
will admit that none are better fitted to care for the 
unfortunate than those who have voluntarily re- 
nounced what is called ‘‘the joys of living,” and 
have no other ties but these selfsame poor. 

As for us Catholics, we must be singularly in- 
different to the welfare of the Church, or very 
short-sighted, not to interest ourselves in the spread 
of congregations devoted to charitable work. One 
of the best answers to make to the Church’s ene- 
mies is the description of all she does for bodily ills, 
since we cannot usually make them admit the good 
she does for souls. Mme Swetchine says, ‘‘I only 
grant one privilege to Catholics, and that is to excel 
every one else.” This privilege becomes a duty in 
an age when everything comes under discussion, 
and only experimental knowledge is valued. Those 
who should see Catholics doing good more wisely 
and perseveringly than others, and the Church 
bringing forth fruits of such comfort as no other 
society can, would find it difficult to deny that she 
has within her principles and aids which are not 
of earth. Ineverything we look for ‘‘object lessons”; 
it is no longer enough, if we want to be understood 
and imitated, to address ourselves to the mind and 
reason only. We must also speak to the senses and 
to the eyes; everything is illustration nowadays. 
People look for reproductions, plans and engra- 
vings, in books where formerly no one expected 


anything beyond the text; inspired works of charity 
300 


THE FUTURE OF THE CONGREGATION 


upheld by faith are, so to speak, the illustrations 
and the credentials of the religious life. Lastly, did 
not our Saviour say, ‘‘Believe you not that I am 
in the Father, and the Father in Me? Otherwise 
believe, for the very work’s sake.” * 

Courage then! there is a future before the Blind 
Nuns of St Paul. Hitherto the community has de- 
veloped slowly, owing, as I have said, to a lack of 
novices with eyesight. How should they come, while 
the Congregation is so little known? Let us work 
to make it better known, and with the help of God 
postulants will flock in. 

Is not the name legion of those young girls who 
seek for something beyond the frivolities of life? 
They feel that the only really important thing in 
the world, the only thing worth living for, is the 
development of their own and others’ souls. More 
numerous than the world believes are those affec- 
tionate children who cannot enjoy what is legiti- 
mately theirs, without being haunted by visions of 
those who want for everything. There is but one 
cure for this obsession, to give themselves totally and 
without reserve, with their will, their heart and their 
possessions, soasto make humansuffering a little less 
unequal. Some of these ‘‘called and chosen” ones 
must find their way to Mére Bergunion’s convent; 
they are expected and will be welcomed with joy. 
Outside numerous blind girls who have a religious 
vocation are waiting anxiously to hear that a postu- 
lant with eyesight has been received, for this will 
open the gates of the ‘‘Promised Land” to one of 
them. 

- You who are in your right place, and who per- 
haps remember what it cost you to respond to that 


* John xiv. 


301 


THE BLIND SISTERS OF ST PAUL 


call which left you no rest—that call which you 
heard in the noisiest crowds as clearly as in your 
chamber alone; you who know the home-sickness 
for the land where the heart is, and where life could 
be really lived in its true significance; you who know 
how we love whatever reminds us of that blessed 
land with all that speaks of and recalls it, who know 
how we watch others starting for it; you under- 
stand, do you not, the real, if purely spiritual, suf- 
fering of the blind woman who cannot follow her 
vocation because circumstances and her affliction 
oblige her to live almost as an egoist, when all the 
time she is longing to sacrifice herself completely? 

Those who have no vocation, and have never 
known what it is to have any great or generous 
enthusiasm, any profound longing to give up all the 
promise of youth to something or some one, to a 
being or an idea which is loved far above self, will 
smile at all this and murmur, ‘‘Chimera!” They 
need not smile. If they cannot understand, let them 
at least be silent before this high and beneficent 
desire; life may be completely transformed by the 
breath of the ideal, when self has been immolated. If 
this be true of the devotion of ourselves to any great 
and beautiful ideal, what must it be, when we have — 
given ourselves to God? Is%it not a joy to a girl 
_ who can see, and has longed to give herself to our 
Lord, to know that she is opening the door to a 
blind postulant,:who for years has longed so pas- 
sionately to realize her vocation, and enter the 
Promised Land? 

I have now concluded a work which circum- 
stances and the claims of the essentially active life 
I lead have prevented being all it should be; but I 


hope some of my readers have followed me to the 
302 


THE FUTURE OF THE CONGREGATION 


end. May they never forget the work of Mére 
Bergunion and the Abbé Juge; and may there be 
those among them who can speak to young girls of 
that dear convent as I should wish to, and make 
them love it as I do. I so long to attract souls to 
that home of peace and self-sacrifice! I should in- 
deed be happy, if thanks to this book some young 
girl who longs to become the mystic spouse of our 
Lord, and to serve the afflicted, would say on the 
blessed day of her Profession: 

**T give myself to the Lord Jesus and to the 
blind for ever!” 


303 


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